Right of Appeal
Tuesday, March 06, 2001
I support Dimity Reed’s position(Age 28/2) that the Appeals Tribunal (VCAT) is vital. The only two times my wife and I have dealt with our (outer suburban) council, we’ve ended up at VCAT just to secure very ordinary human rights concerning what we’d built on our own remote property.
Paul Mees (Age, 22/2) argues that local government Councillors were elected and therefore should not be overruled by appeals tribunals. But one of the first questions you have to ask about any democracy is does it have responsive appeal mechanisms. If not, the bureaucratic appetite for power will go unchecked, we move towards totalitarianism.
Councillors, in my experience of recent years, often do not seem to give a damn how their local people are treated by the Council apparatus. A lot of local government these days seem to regard “its” people with contempt. Collect more fines, invent new charges, make them wait, knock them back on anything that doesn’t exactly fit our procedures – no matter how reasonable it is. If they don’t like it, let them contest it. (They know most people won’t dare.)
Besides, if a citizen does stand up to us, we’re only spending ratepayers’ money fighting them. They’ll have to spend their own!
Philip O'Carroll