By Dominique Tassell
A letter was the cause of debate at the recent Southern Downs Regional Council meeting, with Mayor Vic Pennisi requesting that councillors endorse a letter that had already been sent.
This left some councillors questioning why he could not delay the letter a day to hold off until they had endorsed it.
Councillor Sheryl Windle confirmed that the letter was sent out to councillors on Tuesday night, the night before the Ordinary Council Meeting, but had already been sent off “sometime earlier in the day”.
“I just would have preferred it if we’d had an opportunity to have some input,” she said.
She also highlighted that the locals organising a meeting regarding the topic would have probably had some valuable input too.
In the meeting, Mayor Pennisi stated that councillors had been receiving “volumes of correspondence” in relation to the changes coming into effect on 17 December.
His letter, sent to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, asked the premier to reconsider this decision. He also suggested in the letter, which you can find on our website, that the unvaccinated could simply wear masks to protect themselves and other members of the community once the 80 per cent vaccination target is reached or 17 December arrives.
Councillor Jo McNally was the first in the meeting to raise that she would have preferred to see the letter delayed one day in order to be properly endorsed.
“Why couldn’t it wait one day?”
Mayor Pennisi stated he’d been planning the letter “for a number of days”, and he sent it as soon as it was ready.
While he was hoping for councillors to endorse it, he said: “If you don’t endorse it you don’t endorse it”.
“At the end of the day, Councillor McNally, I am the mayor and I made a call based on the community sentiment that was coming across my desk.”
Councillor McNally raised that the community sentiment represented in the letter may only be a small proportion of the community, as the vast majority of the Southern Downs is now vaccinated.
“So the amount of correspondence that we have had is small in comparison to those amounts,” she said.
She raised that it seemed as if the rest of the community had not been consulted.
“So we’re not going to bother to ask the rest of the people?”
“And there are a lot of people who have actually gone and done the right thing and got vaccinated.
“They had concerns in regards to getting vaccinated, but they actually went and did the right thing.
“For our community, we are a community.
“So as I said, Mr Mayor, whether you’d been working on it for a few days, I’m not quite sure, but it would have been nice if you actually waited until today.
“One day was not going to make any difference to actually get it endorsed today rather than sending it off then asking for endorsement later.”
Councillor Andrew Gale then stated he was happy to endorse the letter, stating he didn’t believe there was anything in its contents that “particularly spoke to one status or another”.
“You spoke to the potential that it could divide the community,” he said.
He stated the letter was not about people getting vaccinated, but about the matter of “and the matter of not creating divisiveness in the community”.
Councillor Ross Bartley stated he thought the letter was a good response to community sentiment and a united response from Council.
He stated the letter “shows that we are thinking of everybody whether they are double vaccination, not vaccinated, or otherwise”.
He stated that people in the community had concerns for their employees and for the divide the mandate may cause.
“I think your letter conveys the sentiments that are being directed towards us as a council,” he said.
Councillor Windle stated that she was surprised to see the letter had been sent when she received it.
“We talk about openness and transparency, we haven’t been very transparent with this as far as us councillors go,” she said.
“We should have been informed or given an opportunity to speak on this before it was sent out.
“I firmly believe, and I also believe that the letters that we’ve been receiving, or the emails that we’ve been receiving are from a minority of people.
She stated some businesses in the community were happy with the mandate because they felt protected by it, while others were not.
“So there’s a cross-section of people, but we didn’t get an opportunity to consult those people, or to hear their views before this was sent out so I think we’re here to represent everybody not just those minority and we should’ve given people the opportunity to have their say on this as well.”
Councillor Stephen Tancred then spoke in support of the letter, particularly the Mayor’s recommendation regarding mask-wearing.
He stated that speed is important in politics.
“This letter shows that we care, shows that we can act, that our aim is also to keep people safe and we’re connected at the grassroots but also want to speak to the Queensland Government.”
Councillor Marco Gliori noted that he’d only received “anti-mandate emails”, but did not know that this was a clear indication of the wider community sentiment.
He stated that we’ve seen the pandemic “wreak havoc on our medical systems throughout the world, and stress our medical staff to the max”.
“With this pandemic moving swiftly throughout the community, the numbers of those infected requiring treatment are terrifying.”
He stated that we have been incredibly fortunate in our region, but need to listen to the wider community’s concerns.
The motion to endorse the letter was carried, with a division called.
Councillors McNally and Windle voted against the motion.
