By TANIA PHILLIPS
JUST days after the Queensland Local Government Council elections were announced, the Southern Downs Council was rocked by the news that one of its sittings councillors was no longer a councillor.
“Effective from Tuesday, 2 February 2016, Mr Jamie Mackenzie is no longer a councillor with Southern Downs Regional Council,” the council announced in a shock statement on Tuesday afternoon.
The council’s chief executive officer David Keenan said there would be no more comment on the matter and any further information should be sought from Mr Mackenzie.
However, yesterday, mayor Peter Blundell announced a special meeting of the council to be held on Friday to officially address the situation created by the necessity for Mr Mackenzie to stand down.
“While Mr Mackenzie and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues to come before the council over the last four years, it is important to recognise his need for privacy at a time like this,” Cr Blundell said.
“I recognise the challenges of being consistently in the public eye and the organisation has offered Mr Mackenzie assistance under the Employee Assistance Program, should he wish to take up that offer.”
He said The Local Government Act 2009, Part 2, Division 1 – Qualifications of councillors, outlines the considerations councillors must give to their eligibility to perform the role and the Act clearly defines the circumstances that will disqualify a person from fulfilling the role of a councillor.
The Southern Free Times believes that under the act there are four grounds for disqualification – treason, bribery or electoral offences; becoming a prisoner; being appointed to higher office (government) and bankruptcy.
The Act also prescribes the process that the council needs to follow when a situation such as this occurs with the council spending yesterday ensuring the process and information was correct.
Cr Blundell said the council also believed that it was important that Mr Mackenzie had the opportunity to explain his situation.
“However, while advice has been received from other parties in relation to the status of Mr Mackenzie’s qualification to be a councillor, the council has not received any advice or formal notification from Mr Mackenzie about his qualification to be a councillor,” he said.
“At the meeting on Friday, the council will consider the options in relation to filling the vacancy created by Mr Mackenzie’s disqualification.
He said with the election now imminent, one of the options will be to leave the position vacant until they are concluded.
As of yesterday, Mr Mackenzie had failed to respond to phone calls and emails and early yesterday morning his Cr Jamie Mackenzie Facebook profile had been taken down and he has not issued any statements to clear up the mystery.
As late as Thursday afternoon, however, the then Cr Mackenzie was still talking about council business and preparing for the forthcoming elections, sending out his profile and information in preparation for the elections which have now been called for 19 March.
He was also in high spirits the week before at the annual Stanthorpe Show where he had won several prizes for his cooking.
A fourth generation Killarney resident, the former Southern Down Regional Councillor, a beef cattle producer, ratepayer and self-employed town planning consultant had appealed for good candidates in the local government elections due on 19 March.
“With a love for the region and decades of experience in local government, I was privileged in my first term on council to be the ‘voice of reason’ for the whole region, offering an informed contribution and professional second opinion on council” Mr Mackenzie said in a press release sent out to the Southern Free Times late last week.
“New blood on council is welcome to push for positive changes identified in this term. Better budgets are a priority along with better consultation with the public, less red tape and a cutting of administration expenses, better use of councillor resources and improved meeting procedures plus representation of all communities on the Southern Downs.
Born and raised in Killarney, Mr Mckenzie gained tertiary education in Brisbane and has worked around Queensland as a town planner in private enterprise and in local governments in Ipswich, Brisbane, Toowoomba and Emerald.
He was a senior local government manager in Dalby before returning home to the family farm and has operated as a consultant for 15 years in, for and against almost half the shire councils across the state.
“From the top of our family property near Killarney we see all over the Southern Downs from the mountainous east to Wilsons Peak and west in a panorama over the black soil plains and tapestry of crops around Allora to historic Warwick and south to Stanthorpe’s Bald Rock. I have enjoyed representing the whole region,” he said in his re-election press release.
