Media Release – 23 September 2015
Last night at the Marrickville Council Mayoral vote Labor councillors, including the Member for Summer Hill Jo Haylen, aligned with conservatives to secure themselves the mayoralty and vote in a pro-WestConnex Liberal Deputy Mayor.
“This is clearly a bad outcome for our progressive community – to have the Labor Party once again reject the offer from the Greens to work together to take on the roles of Mayor and Deputy Mayor,” said Greens Councillor and Mayoral candidate Melissa Brooks.
“Disappointingly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this happen,” Cr Brooks said. “But with the threat of WestConnex and massive overdevelopment from Urban Growth looming over our area we had hoped that Labor would recognise the community’s concerns with the NSW Liberal Government’s agenda and work with us to keep the Liberals out of a leadership role on our local council.”
Jenny Leong MP, NSW Greens spokesperson on WestConnex and Member for Newtown said: “It’s bad enough that local Labor has voted to support a conservative Deputy Mayor on Marrickville Council, but it’s beyond belief to think that they would vote for a Liberal who is pro-WestConnex.
“Just last week Liberal Councillor Rosanna Tyler voted against the motion to stop work on the Alexandria landfill site that is being undertaken by the WestConnex Delivery Authority. This councillor has consistently opposed motions by the council to stand with the community in opposition to WestConnex. Now we see Labor vote for her to be the Deputy Mayor.
“I had hoped that with growing community concern against WestConnex that we were seeing a strengthening in the Labor Party’s opposition to this polluting tollway – but with this latest pro-WestConnex action it seems at the end of the day Labor is willing to put their own interests ahead of the community interest,” Ms Leong said.
