Labor does its block over Shellharbour council independents' voting

At Tuesday night's meeting, four councillors were chosen to act as voting delegates for the NSW Local Government Conference in October.

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All four councillors were independents, including Mayor Chris Homer and newly-elected Deputy Mayor Kellie Marsh.

That raised objections from Labor's Cr Petreski, who felt his party had been snubbed.

"I would suggest that there would be some room given to at least one if not two Labor councillors, because if you take a look at the representation in each ward there is one Labor councillor in each ward and they have been explicitly excluded from the four positions that are being given here," Cr Petreski said.

"I don't think that's fair, I don't think that's right and we need to call it out."

Cr Petreski suggested that some councillors "claiming to be independent are voting in blocks and working in groups, which kind of negates the label 'independent'."

Cr Marsh responded by stating there was "nothing political" in the decision to send those four councillors.

"The mayor and deputy mayor have to undertake this if they are attending, that's that's just how it is," Cr Marsh said.

"As for the other two positions, why I did nominate Cr Davey and Cr Gow? Both yourself [Cr Petreski] and Cr Hamilton have been to conferences before and obviously voted on behalf of council. Cr Davey and Cr Gow have not done that before and I think it'll be good experience."

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