Council
6 June, 2025
C’mite to highlight community voice importance
CORANGAMITE Shire Council will highlight the importance of engaging the community through consultation practices after voting to put forward a submission to a State Government inquiry at last month’s Ordinary Meeting of Council.
The Legislative Council moved on July 31 last year to require the Environment and Planning Committee to explore community consultation practices of local and state government by February 28, 2026.
The inquiry will focus on six themes – restoring trust and building social license, the role of local government, risk of outsourcing engagement, equity in engagement, improving the Engage Victoria platform and learning from best practice.
Corangamite Shire Council authorised chief executive officer (CEO) David Rae to put forward a submission in addition to one being compiled by the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV).
Councillor Ruth Gstrein moved the recommendation at the meeting, saying engagement consultation needed to be transparent.
“I think this inquiry has highlighted the importance of building trust and being clear on the purpose of the consultation, that the consultation is actually warranted and it’s not just an information giving session,” she said.
“I think there’s nothing worse than having predetermined outcomes and then asking people for feedback and not having that feedback taken on board.
“I think that the Corangamite comments is really important too, because it does highlight the specific issues about rural municipalities and people in rural settings being able to take part and be engaged.
“It comes down to the cost of consultation and the ability to access–as we know on our shire, there are a number of black spots where it’s very difficult to get digital reception, or indeed if people have time to have face-to-face consultations and when I get on the train or get in the car and drive to Melbourne, it can certainly mount up from a financial point of view.
“The other concern that is highlighted is about the lack of transparency and the ability to have open dialogue and feedback, particularly when people who are involved in this consultation are forced to sign confidentiality agreements.”
In the report presented to council, director sustainable development Justine Linley said council concurred with many points raised by the MAV in all six themes.
“Council supports the call for further support to enable councils to fulfil their legislative obligations particularly in relation to deliberative engagement,” she said.
“Meaningful deliberative engagement can be costly, both in time, resources and funding and at its best involves capacity building in communities over time.
“This is particularly of concern in rural shires with dispersed communities covering large land areas with variable digital access and at times non-existent public transport.
“Ensuring broad participation by communities in deliberative engagement activities is very challenging and costly in rural shires.”
Mrs Linley said the work of councillors, who are strongly connected to the community in rural areas, is often overlooked when it came to consultation.
“Councillors play a direct and ongoing role in engagement with the constituents in their communities which is often under-valued and unacknowledged by government and government agencies and authorities,” she said.
“Outsourcing engagement to specialist engagement firms can risk feedback not being received or feedback being inadvertently misinterpreted or lost in translation.
“This applies equally to government agencies and local government, and often leads to the removal of subject matter experts from the process.
“This can be particularly problematic where, for example, technical land-use planning, or infrastructure planning is involved.”
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