Senator Gerard Craughwell - speech from 26 Nov 2020

I would like to compliment Senator Coyne on what he has just delivered here this morning. He is a typical rural politician. He understands what is going on in his local area. As a fellow of Gaul Region, I would just like to congratulate him for bringing it forward. We need to support local industry. Speaking of support, Deputy Leader, an issue I often discuss in this House, and some people think it is purely political, it is not. It comes from my trade union background, I suppose, and that is the way we treat our local representatives and particularly our county councillors. Since the pandemic has struck, many of our local representatives have found their businesses, small businesses, closed and unable to trade. When it comes to welfare payments and the like, their representational allowance is taken into account. Now, I think the time has come for us to face up to this representational allowance. We talk about county councillors' pay. County councillors are not paid in the true sense of the word. There is no master-servant relationship that exists. They cannot be fired. They are elected. The miserable monies they get are to carry out the duties that we ask them to do. In 2015, in 2015, in 2015, when I spoke to a councillors' convention down in Inchidoni Island, I was told, oh, look, we deal with all that in the corridors. We don't talk publicly about it. Anyway, it is all going to be fixed straight away. And the document was on the minister's desk in 2015. It hasn't been signed yet and it won't be signed in my view. But more importantly, and it's not just councillors. Now, we hear of young barristers in the law library being refused payments as well. It's just wrong in every sense of the word. The money that's given to these county councillors is in order to assist them to do the job they were elected to do. It is not a salary. And if it is, we should be ashamed of it. But the bottom line on it is we need to look at the welfare of these councillors. I can bring you to councillors, and I know you can go there yourself, Deputy Leader, who drive hundreds of miles every month, assisting families, filling out forms, working through various parts of the bureaucracy of this country. And all they have to fund that is their representational allowance. We have allowances here that it is not regarded as part of our salary. It is there to support us in the work we do. I'm not one bit ashamed of supporting the needs of county councillors to have money to do the job they're elected to do. And if we want to pay them a salary, then let's pay them a proper salary and stop all the nonsense. I was deeply distressed last night at the number of county councillors that contacted me about the dire straits they're living in at this point in time. So, if other people are entitled to welfare because their businesses are closed, so too are local representatives. Senator Crocwell, you raised the issue of how we treat our councillors and their well-being, and I want to agree with your remarks. I know other senators have backed you up on that. Senators Blaney and Byrne and I think Carraghey as well. There was a number of senators who responded, and I'm sure all would agree. I would agree with you. I think we should show a degree of respect for the profession of being a councillor. It is a very, it's a real job. They perform very real and meaningful duties, and they're not paid properly, and we know that. They get, I think, their take-home pay is less, it's not even a pay really, it's less than what you get on social welfare. So, it's not a salary. It certainly does in no way match the workload. And I would agree with you that, depending on where the councillor is located, many councillors are driving hundreds of kilometres on a monthly basis, which is a direct cost to running their operation. So, some councillors, if they're working a second job, effectively take home very little, actually. And they don't do it just for the money, but at the same time, they should be paid properly. And I don't see why there's a fear in saying that. And I would hope that we would see a movement on that without any more delay on it. Thank you.