Former West Coast Eagle accuses Busselton council of bullying

Just one hour into his first meeting as a Busselton city councillor, former West Coast Eagle Andrew Macnish accused his colleagues of bullying him, which another councillor described as “setting a disturbing tone”. At the first council meeting since the weekend elections, Cr Macnish and the newly appointed deputy mayor Cr Anne Ryan demanded their names be removed from the behaviour and complaints committee. The committee, set up to manage and determine behaviour complaints and associated confidentiality, was endorsed by the previous council as mandatory for the mayor and all councillors. But Cr Macnish and Cr Ryan, who were running mates during the election, did not accept they should be compelled to join the committee. “I made a statement in the press for want of a better terminology, that I wouldn’t be bullied by the status quo,” Mr Macnish said “My name needs to come off because I did not nominate for this committee and I cannot be forced to nominate for it.” Deputy Mayor, Cr Anne Ryan, who came second in the race for mayor, said it was “my right to nominate the committee I want to be on and I want to be on the audit and risk committee, it’s the only one committee I want to be on.” Cr Macnish, who is a previous Busselton shire CEO, also questioned the need for the behaviour and complaints committee. “I didn’t nominate for the behaviour complaints committee, yet I see my name there, so I wish to remove my name from that, because I don’t believe that committee should exist,” Cr Machnish said. “That is a superfluous committee that does not need to occur and I won’t be supporting it and I didn’t nominate for it, so my name needs to be taken off that,” he said. Excluding the behaviour committee, of the 23 other committees, Cr Macnish nominated for four, Cr Ryan 11, Mayor Phill Cronin 12, Cr Mikayla Love 13, Cr Jodie Richards 11, Cr Jarrod Kennedy 10, Cr Kate Cox nine, Cr Sue Riccelli five and Cr Cherise Woodhams five. Cr Macnish and Cr Ryan then went on to vote against the adoption of the composition of the council’s various committees, with the motion passed 7-2. “I feel it is a sad day when a former council can force a new councillor to be on a committee that they don’t want to be on, that just seems strange to me,” Cr Macnish said. “I’m not aware of why a particular committee was set up, but I can probably guess that it had unusual circumstances because it is an unusual committee. “I don’t want to be bullied by the status quo or what is and there is no need to do that here because the committee can simply lie fallow, as is, unfilled and move on and can be dealt with in a month’s time.” Cr Kate Cox said the motion to adopt the committees had her full support. “I find this quite interesting, I commend this resolution to the council and I think you’ll find that the previous resolution of council, was potentially carried nine-nil for the behaviour and complaints committee,” she said. “I sit here and I see other councillors in this chamber saying that they are not willing to be on any committees, because they don’t want to do the work. “Saying we are bullying in the chamber when we have been here for five minutes, that is really setting a disturbing tone for how we are going to move forward and frankly I am really disappointed.”