Newcastle Councillors will tonight debate on whether or not to give themselves a pay rise.
They will decide on a 16 per cent pay rise.
Independent Councillors Kath Elliott, John Church, Allan Robinson and Andrea Rufo put forward a rescission motion saying a 16 per cent pay rise for Councillors and a 24 per cent increase in the Lord Mayor's allowance is "inappropriate" when "council is continuing to burden ratepayers with a consecutive 8% Special Rate Variation increases, supposedly to address its financial challenges".
Before last year's council elections, council voted against a pay rise, even though the Local Government Remuneration Tribunal allowed councils to take a 16 per cent increase if they wanted it.
"It's perplexing as to why it was bought to us again at the end of the year. I don't know what changed. But certainly there was no pay rise going to be granted in June and then we had this turnaround from Labor and voted for it after the election so one has to be a little skeptical about why that was," said Kath Elliott.
She also said, "I don't think it's appropriate for us to be given such a large pay rise when there are people paying high rates, people in the community who can't get a large pay rise. It's out of step with community expectations so I'm hoping Labor votes against it too."
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| Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes. Image dailytelegraph.com.au |
