EDITORIAL
LAST week Kingston councillors, each accepting healthy ratepayer-funded allowances, publicly bickered for close to an hour about Governance Rules.
During 50 minutes of heated argument on a proposal with little material benefit to ratepayers, points of order were freely thrown across the chamber, the mayor’s authority was unsuccessfully challenged, councillors’ qualifications were questioned, and bullying allegations were aired. The end result was the deferral of the motion to next month’s council meeting, where councillors can relitigate the matter and waste ratepayers’ time and money all over again. This farcical behaviour is all occurring under the watchful eyes of two state government-appointed council monitors, who will cost ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time they leave their posts.
The inciting incident last week was a relatively harmless, although unusual, notice of motion from Cr Tess Law to install herself on the CEO remuneration committee. Attempts to install one’s self onto a committee via a notice of motion are rare, and Cr Sarah O’Donnell moved an alternate motion to defer the matter until next month so council officers could verify Cr Law’s qualifications. This sparked a time-consuming row which threatened to derail the meeting entirely.
A functioning council should have established whether the motion and any proposed alternates were adherent to Governance Rules cordially in a council briefing before dragging it in front of the public. Simply put, Kingston Council is not currently an effectively functioning council.
The reasons for the state government’s appointment of monitors at Kingston Council have been deliberately obfuscated. The Australian has published comments from Cr Caroline White, who was absent from last week’s meeting and is currently on extended leave from council (“Councillor takes leave after golf course debacle” The News, 11/2/2026), claiming that the state Labor government has only appointed monitors to exert control over a council it can no longer influence. The state government has not helped things by providing vague reasons for the appointment, with local government minister Nick Staikos saying “Victorians expect their councils to maintain a high standard of processes and practices, and these monitors will help the council best serve the Kingston community.” (“Monitor’s appointment questioned” The News, 22/8/2025)
Although the justification for their appointment is as clear as mud, the desired outcome is simple: council monitors are usually appointed to improve council performance. In the quiet of the Christmas period, the state government extended the monitors for a further six months (“Monitors set for extended stay” The News, 14/1/2026). Nearly halfway through that extension, the looming axe swinging overhead has not helped the situation at all. Relationships between councillors remain tense at best, and volatile at worst. The performance of the organisation as a whole has not improved.
The result of this council’s disorganisation is poorer outcomes for residents. Council’s mismanagement of the Kingswood Golf Course matter is the most significant example of the impact of a dysfunctional council.
The state government took the Dingley Village Kingswood Golf Course redevelopment out of the hands of council years ago, referring the proposal to the Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee in 2021. Last year the planning minister approved plans to build 941 residential lots on the land. The merits of the controversial proposal – the careful balance between a need for housing and the retention of open space – can be argued endlessly. What is concrete is that residents should be sufficiently consulted.
Up against the giant that is the state government’s planning department, residents rely on council to be their voice. Without council resources to battle and advocate for local causes, the average resident faces a David vs Goliath mismatch at planning panels or at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Kingston Council let down its residents by failing to submit its VCAT paperwork appealing the Kingswood Dingley Village decision on time. (“Council misses crucial Kingswood deadline” The News, 14/1/2026)
Kingston Council missed the VCAT deadline by four days. Council CEO Peter Bean blamed the state government, saying “confusion over the legal timeline was caused by multiple different dates from the Victorian Government including a delegate’s approval, minister signing, and notification to council.” The real question is, why did council wait until just days before the deadline to file the appeal?
The appointment of monitors does not make dismissal a foregone conclusion; the 2016-2020 Frankston Council successfully navigated a year of monitoring without being sacked (“Monitor leaves six-figure bill” The News, 18/6/2019). The final report prepared by monitors should detail how things have improved over their tenure, but for Kingston Council it will likely not make for pleasant reading. Cr Tony Athanasopoulos took a positive step last week by successfully proposing the establishment of a councillor working group for the duration of the monitors’ stay to implement a Governance and Cultural Improvement Action Plan. That decision seems to be a move in the right direction, but there remains a lot more work to be done.
Last week’s meeting was not the first time bullying allegations have been publicly aired during this Kingston Council term (“Bullying allegations aired in council meeting” The News, 2/4/2025). As clashing claims of councillor wrongdoing and state government interference grow louder, the hard fact is that Kingston Council is failing to work together for the benefit of its residents.
The mayor, now in her second consecutive term in the chair, works hard to keep the show running smoothly but faces a near-impossible task. Referrals have been made to government and employment watchdogs to assess internal council matters (“No watchdog action on grants” The News, 29/10/2025). Furthermore Cr White is on leave until May, citing “months of bullying, intimidation, threats and harassment.” She is just one of multiple councillors to have taken extensive time off over the last year; one of those councillors, Cr Jane Agirtan, was stood down for three months after being charged with breaching a personal safety intervention order. She only resolved the matter by accepting a two-week diversion on the condition she make a $2000 donation to the Royal Children’s Hospital, after which she was welcomed back to council entitled to thousands of dollars in backpay per the Local Government Act (“Councillor offered diversion by court” The News, 20/6/2025).
The internal issues at Kingston Council have piled so high that genuine issues affecting residents are falling to the wayside. If this council ends up sacked fingers will quickly be pointed at the state government, but councillors must bear some of the blame too. For the sake of the ratepayers who voted them into power, it is time for this group of councillors to put aside personal issues and work together.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 4 March 2026