Friday, October 07, 2005
CoMSEQ comes a-cropper
The Lord Mayor is fuming this morning.

He and his cronies in the Council of Mayors South East Queensland (“CoMSEQ”, though we’re not supposed to use the acronym) have been found out.

Brisbane’s [only] major daily paper, the Courier-Mail, has published a highly critical article and ran editorial on CoMSEQ’s total neglect of public transport in its transport policy objectives.

I’ll admit, there’s a little history here: CoMSEQ is the organisation that replaced SEQROC, the South East Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils. On SEQROC’s demise, I was out of job.

CoMSEQ endeavoured to become a more politically focussed advocacy organisation, concentrating on winning concessions and funding from government. Their strap line, “Representing one in seven Australians,” shows that CoMSEQ is willing to take their fight all the way to Canberra.

On the other hand, its predecessor, SEQROC, was more operationally focussed, busily fostering links and partnerships between councils and government and getting creative in the un-sexy parts of government administration, like public and environmental health, integrated transport and development assessment. But SEQROC also had its successes on the grander stage: the organisation was the main driver in forcing the State government to get to grips with the regional planning agenda.

CoMSEQ’s tactic is to extend their influence through an aggressive media strategy. Normally media-shy in nature, the Mayors of SEQ were encouraged to get the message out there.
But it has all back-fired, as the Courier-Mail went after them in a big way:

“What are our mayors thinking?” the editorial barracked. “It demonstrates that the new Southeast Queensland Council of Mayors is off to a bad start as a replacement for the Southeast Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils.”

“It is running up a flag for governing suburbs-for-cars, without necessarily focusing on people,” the Courier-Mail said.

What has aggravated the Lord Mayor most is that parts of the article have certainly been leaked, as both the minutes are kept secret and only the Mayors and selected guests attend the meetings. The solidarity that CoMSEQ promised has imploded.

Old colleagues from the SEQROC office have speculated about who has put the proverbial cat amongst blind horse’s nine tails and have come up with three suspect heroes…..who shall remain anonymous.

But in my opinion, CoMSEQ deserves all it gets, and not just because I agree with the CM’s position on public transport. If CoMSEQ wants a front-foot media and political strategy, it’s going to have to accept the scrutiny that goes with the territory. It is public money they spend, after all.

My one big criticism of the original SEQROC was its poor mechanisms for public accountability, but few things were ‘secret’ and in the final analysis the public interest was always upheld by the dead hand of well-meaning and dedicated bureaucracy. The operational nature of the business almost never had a political perspective.

CoMSEQ on the other hand, claims to represent one in seven Australians, but it lacks any public or media oversight of proceedings. Scrutiny has been effectively locked out. The mayors arrogantly assume they could carve out good and representative policy in the vacuum of their own cosy private club. But they are wrong and they have been found out.

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16817287%255E3102,00.html

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16813340%255E13360,00.html

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