ALBURY councillor Graham Docksey has questioned the worth of a colleague attending a conference in Melbourne on crime prevention.
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Cr Docksey raised the relevance of Cr David Thurley attending the conference organised by the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Community Crime Prevention Unit in the Victorian Department of Justice.
He wondered whether the Victorian-centric nature of the conference had any relevance to a NSW council.
The two-day conference was held last month with the total cost to the council being almost $2000.
The six-month report of all conferences attended by councillors was tabled on Monday night with the total bill being $5640.
In response, Cr Thurley said issues such as closed circuit television cameras, alcohol-related matters and domestic violence were important to Albury ratepayers.
“They are not confined to state boundaries,” Cr Thurley said.
“Speakers came from as far afield as Queensland and Western Australia.
“In fact one came from Scotland.”
Cr Docksey has previously attended a roads conference in Tasmania, but he said yesterday he went in his capacity as the chairman of the council traffic committee.
Cr Thurley is the council’s representative on the Albury Liquor Accord and the potential installation of CCTV cameras in central Albury will be re-visited by the council in October.
The biggest conference cost for the past six months was for mayor Kevin Mack to attend the National General Assembly of Local Government in Canberra last month.
It cost $2323 including a registration fee of $1324.
The six-monthly expenditure on councillor conference attendance was within budget.
Wodonga Council has agreed to spend $15,000 on sending Cr Lisa Mahood and chief executive officer Patience Harrington to a social enterprise world forum in South Korea this year.