By Campbell Spence
Residents of Port Phillip – RoPP are a group dedicated to making the Port Phillip local Council more efficient, improve customer service, and accountable to the residents and ratepayers of Port Phillip.
In seeking to achieve these ends, RoPP advocates for the removal of party-political politics from local council – leaving politics in their rightful place – namely state and federal parliaments- and that all council expenditure be directly referable to matters pertaining to the City of Port Phillip ie. ‘within the direct responsibly of council’ or to put it another way – ‘within and not outside council’s lane’.
Expenditure or projects properly suited to or under the purview of the State or Federal governments should not be projects occupying any council expenditure.
Further, RoPP seeks to improve core customer services and to curb the excesses, waste and inefficiencies of the council’s and its bureaucracy's use of funds and to streamline and achieve efficiencies in its expenditure.
RoPP does NOT seek to reduce any of the proper services or projects provided by the council. In fact, with further funds being available to council as a result of creating efficiencies and curbing excesses, additional funds would become available, where necessary, for existing ‘intra vires’ council services and projects.
RoPP also seeks, as part of its aim to make council more efficient and accountable to residents and ratepayers, to freeze and hopefully reduce rates and charges paid which are grossly excessive and greatly exceed amounts levied by comparable councils, while at the same time improve the services provided by council to its residents and ratepayers. Compare your rates here: https://ropp.org.au/property-rates-calculator/
RoPP can obviously only achieve these aims by having enough of its members running for council being elected. While in the last period of council, with two elected RoPP councillors, a lot was able to be achieved, RoPP’s councillors were continuously thwarted by councillors with political affiliations and agendas.
This has, and continues to, lead to waste and inappropriate, non-council related expenditure. It also leads to services which should be offered, not being approved, in favour of expenditure which is either not properly within council’s ‘lane’ or done purely for political reasons.
RoPP and its councillors, are continually being attacked on the basis that they have political affiliations. Nothing can be further from the truth. The essence of RoPP’s policy is to remove party politics from council. The fact that RoPP’s current councillors each have differing political beliefs as do those standing under its banner for election in the upcoming council, clearly establishes this reality.
Politics HAVE NO PLACE in council and a vote for a RoPP candidate is a vote to eradicate party politics from council and leave it where it properly belongs – in the state and federal parliaments.
