Political battle turns ugly in race to be Warrnambool's mayor

The bitter jockeying for leadership is usually only reserved for the halls of Parliament House in Canberra or Spring Street in Melbourne.

Rarely do we see the behind-the-scenes battle for mayor play out so publicly.

There are those city councillors who say it was unfair on Cr Sue Cassidy, but then there are others who say it's just politics.

Some councillors have labelled the whole saga as a distraction while others have moved to assure the public they can still work together for the good of the community.

To elect a new mayor, the tradition has been for Warrnambool's councillors to get together the week before for an informal meeting and decide who it will be so they can let their families know.

This time things didn't go as they perhaps normally do, and Cr Sue Cassidy has brought the whole saga into the public spotlight.

"I just think it's a joke and I just want people to know what goes on there," she said.

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Cr Cassidy said she left the meeting on Monday believing the job of mayor would be hers only to be phoned an hour later and told it wasn't.

Cr Peter Hulin left at the start of the meeting because, he said, he didn't think Cr Cassidy would get the support of other councillors if they knew he backed her.

Cr Mike Neoh said the "one odd thing that has never happened" before was they didn't have all the councillors in the room.

"Could you imagine if we made the decision and one councillor wasn't in the room?"

Cr Cassidy was the only one to put her hand up for the job after Cr Herbert told the meeting he'd decided he wasn't going to run because of the stress of the last six months.

"He's not sleeping at night, it was affecting his family, it's affecting his business, he no longer had the passion for the position," Cr Cassidy said.

After the meeting, Crs Robert Anderson and David Owen congratulated her.

"It's always been the decision that's made in that room is the decision that's made," she said.

"As far as I was concerned when I left that room I was going in with the whole seven votes.

"Obviously, they were not happy with the decision that had been made but instead of actually being adults and having the discussion while I was there they waited for me to leave the room.

"My biggest problem is there was a meeting after the meeting which I don't agree with and it's not good governance. It's terrible."

Cr Cassidy said she usually didn't complain about things but this one had "gone too far". "I'm going to let the world know what really happens in that place."

She said that while all the councillors didn't actually say they would vote for her, they didn't say they weren't either.

She said she believed it was all because she was too close to Cr Hulin. "They're scared that he'll get power," she said.

However, Cr Herbert said he had twice voted for Cr Hulin to be mayor, despite Cr Hulin not voting for him.

He said he voted the way he thought he should vote on council issues, not how others wanted him to and his voting record showed he didn't vote in line with any group of councillors.

"If you harbour ill feelings for what people say or what people think or the way people vote, you're the wrong type of person for this job," he said.

Cr Cassidy said that Cr Herbert would be elected mayor on Monday night. "...and that's fine, but I just want people to know how the process actually happened because I'll still put my hand up on Monday night because I will not vote for him," she said.

She said it was the way Cr Herbert called and said "I'm going to do a c**t's act on you", that upset her.

Despite bringing the issue into the public arena, Cr Cassidy said the councillors would still be able to work together for the good of the community.

"It's just when it gets to a mayoral vote or whatever, that's when all the ugly heads come out," she said.

Cr Herbert said meetings like the one on Monday night had no governance around them. "They've got no rules. They're just a discussion," he said.

He said other councils in the region had a similar meetings while others had no meeting at all.

Cr Herbert said he'd approached all councillors about backing him as mayor, but said Cr Hulin told him: "no, we want you to step down".

He said there had been miscommunication between himself and three other councillors - he thought they were going to come back to him and they thought he was going to come back to them.

"They never asked me to run," he said.

After the meeting Cr Herbert said he went home and then decided to run. That's when he rang Crs Gaston, Neoh, Owen to ask if they would support him, and the he called Cr Cassidy.

Cr Robert Anderson said he received a call from Cr Herbert on Wednesday to apologise, but he told the mayor that, if you take personalities out of it, it wasn't the right way of going about it.

Cr Herbert said he'd had a pretty bad day that day. "I don't think it was the right way to go about it either," he said.

"Politics is a bit of a dirty game and it's taken me a while to get used to that. I still don't like it but that's the way it is."

Cr David Owen said there was "no meeting after the meeting".

He said there was no secondary discussion, it was just the three councillors that were left in the room showing solidarity and saying they understood the reasons why Cr Herbert had decided not to run.

"The discussion was about 'I understand why you don't want to be mayor. I respect your decision, and basically we left'," Cr Owen said.

He said while he was there none of them tried to get Cr Herbert to change his mind.

He said that they couldn't actually vote for mayor because Cr Hulin wasn't there.

Cr Owen said he'd congratulated Cr Cassidy because Cr Herbert had made it very clear that he had decided not to stand for mayor and he was very happy to support Sue under those circumstances.

He said he thought it was unfair that the outcome of Monday's meeting wasn't particularly clear, but they were unable to vote because Cr Hulin wasn't there.

"At the end of the day it's not personal, it's political," he said.

"Tony and I have always supported each other and I felt that a mayor needs two terms. I don't think one is enough.

"I felt he had instigated some fine aspirational things that needed supporting for another 12 months."

Cr Owen said this year was the last time the seven councillors would be together before next year's elections and this was a major distraction for what they hoped to achieve.

Cr Hulin said he admired Cr Cassidy for her courage in "blowing the lid off what's happening in our council".

"It's not good governance, it's not proper process, it puts council in an extremely poor light."

He said the council was either an open and transparent council like the mission statement said, or not.

Cr Mike Neoh said people didn't understand the "rough and tumble of politics" when it came to the mayoral vote or even pre-selection. "It's nothing more than a political game," he said.

"The bottom line is you've got to have four supporters. If you don't have the numbers, you don't have the numbers".

He said you had to show some humility whether you were elected mayor or not.

Cr Neoh said he would always give whoever was elected mayor 100 per cent and "if you can't do that you're not a team player".

He said the meeting on Monday night was flawed because "we had one councillor refusing to take part".

"If you ask anyone in the room, I was a bit dumbfounded that we didn't have all candidates so I could make an informed decision," he said.

Cr Neoh said there were instances in past years where a decision hadn't been made about who was mayor until the night of the vote.

Cr Kylie Gaston said she went home that night thinking Cr Cassidy was going to mayor because she was the only person who put her hand up.

"But it was already a bit of a false meeting," she said. "Usually when this happens, it's a courtesy discussion and if there's a consensus the people can arrange for their family to be there."

She said it wasn't based on governance, it was a political discussion.

"It doesn't always happen that way and in this case the fact that Peter Hulin wasn't there already kind of nullified it because we couldn't have a vote," she said.

"Until those hands go up at that annual meeting, anything can happen. At the end of the day, the decision is made on Monday night."

Cr Gaston said that she was dumbfounded when Cr Herbert said he wasn't running because she was intending to back him.

She described the meeting as "very flat", "no one knew what was happening" and she said at the meeting that "if it is to be Sue we should congratulate her".

"Everyone was shocked," she said. "It was a bit of a non meeting, followed by no meeting after the non meeting.

"It was actually a councillors-only discussion."

She said they all left the council that night thinking there was only one nominee and it looked like Cr Cassidy would be mayor, and then Cr Herbert called.

She said it was disappointing that the mayoral battle was being played out in public.

"Our first obligation is to the community. We don't need to have disruption," she said.

"When I've run for mayor I've had to fight for the numbers. I don't think that's a bad thing.

"Mayoralty is always difficult, everyone will calm down and we will move on."

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