COMMENT: If councillors’ eligibility for the job was decided on their interest in the functions and politics of local government, their attendance at meetings or their work ethic there is little doubt Kevin Duffy would still have a seat in the Orange City Council chamber.
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But councillor Duffy’s undoing was the legal definition of “residence” and a tribunal has decided that his residence was not in Orange as it should have been when he nominated for council.
The tribunal heard Cr Duffy certainly stayed in Orange at his son’s home during the qualifying period to run for council, but on balance it decided that was more a strategic move than a genuine shifting of the place he called home.
The decision will be seen as a victory by individual members of the Orange Ratepayers Association who applied for or supported an application to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal to have Cr Duffy dismissed, but it probably says more about an archaic rule than Cr Duffy’s value to Orange council.
There are people on the council who know far less about the intricacies of local government and have a much lighter workload than Cr Duffy but that, unfortunately, was not what the tribunal was asked to rule on.
Given his outspoken and arguably destabilising comments about moving parts of Cabonne shire into Orange city, it is hardly surprising he is an unpopular figure in many quarters. But the fact remains he has an interest in the affairs of Orange and the support of some voters.
Unless he wins an unlikely appeal, Cr Duffy must go. It will cost the city a pretty penny to hold a by-election and as the rules stand, a candidate who lives many kilometres away but owns rateable property here will qualify to stand.
The place-of-residence test does not apply for state and federal candidates, but it does in local government and Cr Duffy will pay the price for failing what in this day and age is a questionable test.
