Every 4 years, our residents and ratepayers elect our councillors. Together our councillors make decisions in the interests of the whole municipality. The next election is in 2024.

These councillors are elected in 3 wards across our municipality:

• North-East Ward
• North-West Ward
• South Ward.

Our councillors

Our Councillors for the 2021-22 year were:

North–East Ward:
Councillor Sue Bolton
Councillor Annalivia Carli Hannan
Councillor Helen Pavlidis-Mihalakos
Councillor Adam Pulford

North–West Ward:
Councillor Helen Davidson
Councillor Angelica Panopoulos
Councillor Oscar Yildiz JP
Councillor Milad El-Halabi JP (resigned 10 February 2022)
Councillor Monica Harte (elected 23 March 2022)

South Ward:
Councillor James Conlan
Councillor Mark Riley
Councillor Lambros Tapinos

Mayor

Council elects a mayor and a deputy mayor each year.

In November 2021, Council elected Cr Mark Riley as Mayor and Cr Lambros Tapinos as Deputy Mayor. They held these offices until November 2021.

Committees

Councillors take part in a range of committees or groups. This is one of their important roles as representatives of the community.

You can read more about what committees and responsibilities each councillor had during 2021-22 in our Merri-bek's Councillors (PDF 140Kb).

Code of conduct

We have a code of conduct setting out the standards of behaviour expected of councillors. Councillors should behave fairly and respectfully. This is so they can work together in the best interests of the community.

Our Councillor Code of Conduct was reviewed and adopted on 23 February 2021. You can read more about this on our Councillor conduct page.

The Local Government Act 2020 required us to have a new code of conduct. You can read more about this in the Our governance section of this report.

Conflict of interest

Councillors are elected to act in the best interests of the community. Council staff also need to act in the public interest when undertaking their duties.

A conflict of interest occurs when a personal or private interest might compromise, or might be perceived to compromise, the ability to act in the public interest.

A conflict of interest exists even if no improper act results from it.

We have a procedure in place to accommodate the disclosure of a conflict of interest. The opportunity to declare a conflict of interest is a standard agenda item for all council meetings. This declaration also takes place before the start of procurement and recruitment processes.

We maintain a register to record all disclosed conflicts of interest.

During 2021-22, 26 conflict of interest disclosures were made at council meetings and councillor briefings. In declaring a conflict of interest, the relevant councillor would leave the meeting. This removed them from the decision-making process in relation to that matter. In one instance, a declaration was made prior to a briefing and the councillor did not attend.

There was 1 conflict of interest disclosure added to the register for council officers.

We reviewed our Gifts, Benefits and Hospitality Policy for Councillors in April 2021. This policy sets out practices to avoid the potential for conflicts of interest through the offer/acceptance of:

• gifts
• benefits
• hospitality.

Our procedures vary depending on the role and circumstances of the offer. Our policy has robust thresholds and defined practices.