Outgoing Deputy Mayor Amanda Cohn reflects on time at council, achievements and abuse

The young doctor working at Albury Base Hospital and Greens member who ran for Albury Council in 2016 was somewhat naive about what lay ahead.

"I have learned so much, and some of that's been a real joy," Dr Cohn said.

"I think I've also learned some of the challenges that affect women in public life, and that's a lesson I probably didn't want to have to have learned.

"I perhaps came in with some naivety around what the day-to-day job was going to be like."

Immediately after being made Albury Council's youngest deputy mayor at 26, Dr Cohn attended a public forum on mayor Kevin Mack's behalf.

One participant commented, "You're not what I was expecting the deputy mayor to look like".

They are the anecdotes told over and over by women in politics, of assumed roles of note-taking or coffee-ordering (yes, Amanda has copped both).

But it has been the bullying and abuse that took the biggest toll.

"That online nastiness started as soon as I was a candidate, and I think that's a real shame, as most people lament that young people don't get more involved in leadership," Dr Cohn said.

"If that's the way that we treat people when they put their hand up and give it a go, it's no wonder there aren't more young people and young women in political life.

"I think I learned to cope with it by knowing that most of the people that say the nastiest things to me have actually never met me."

There have been threats of physical and sexual violence, three of which Dr Cohn took to Albury Police.

"The police in the first instance were very helpful in identifying who those individuals were and whether or not they would actually be able to carry out those threats," she said.

"There is still an ongoing investigation into one of the threats.

"I think for the first couple of years, I would just delete that sort of thing, because my attitude was to try and just not let it affect me, because they're trying to affect you.

"I got halfway through my term and I realised that it was actually really important for us to be talking about this.

"So I started actually sharing some of the things that had been said to me on social media.

"It started the conversation, and the amount of support I received was valuable emotional support for me."

Working in various hospitals, Dr Cohn has been exposed to "difficult behaviour" before.

"It's quite a hierarchical and stressful work environment and it is a male-dominated profession," she said.

"Certainly when that behaviour occurs in hospitals, I don't think it's the norm, and there are pretty good support structures in place for junior doctors to report that kind of behaviour and to receive support.

"There's something about politics that makes people think that that's just acceptable, that when you put your hand up for election that means you deserve to have all this kind of abuse, and it shouldn't be that way, we should be able to disagree about public matters and do that in a professional way and in a respectful way.

"I've been told over and over again I should toughen up, and that's just really unhelpful. That's basically saying that the behaviour is appropriate and I have to change to deal with it."

Dr Cohn believes it is less about her being a Greens member than it is about her being young and female.

Dr Cohn believes it is less about her being a Greens member than it is about her being young and female, and she points to the experience of Wodonga councillor Kat Bennett.

"Kat is an independent ... she and I have shared some similar experiences and I think that shows how much of it is sexist behaviour and ageist behaviour and it's nothing to do with political party affiliation," she said.

The first Greens candidate to be elected to Albury Council wants the Office of Local Government to better protect councillors.

Dr Cohn has made complaints about behaviour in the chamber under the Councillor Code of Conduct.

"There are provisions in the Councillor Code of Conduct around treating people with respect, but in my opinion, it's a fairly toothless code, it's very rarely enforced in any meaningful way," she said.

"There is a need for clearer, more specific definitions of what things like bullying mean, what they mean by respect.

"I think that would be a way to address some of the behaviours when it has come from other Councillors.

"I understand that I've got some really progressive views that might not be shared by everyone in the community, but I think it's really important to be putting those ideas on the agenda, and I hope that moving forward we can have those kinds of disagreements about ideas in a way that's respectful."

The idea of strengthening the Code of Conduct is one that fellow Albury councillor David Thurley supports.

"It does need to be strengthened, but in the end it comes down to our personal behaviour," he said.

"The people who support codes of conducts are the ones that work with them best.

"If you watched any of the live-streamed debates, you would see at times behaviour that is inappropriate.

"You can disagree with people's opinions, but there are ways to do that - without being rude or confrontational."

Cr Thurley described the abuse he, and his young councillor colleague have received as "horrendous" and "disgusting".

"I've kept a list of it," he said.

"Some people feel they have a right to abuse you because you haven't done what they like."

The councillor of eight years said the nature and intensity of abuse experienced by elected representatives did vary, and he believed in Dr Cohn's case, it was related to her being a young woman and a member of the Greens.

"I do certainly get concerned that young people and women look at this sort of stuff and go 'Why should I put myself out there and suffer that?'," he said.

"It shouldn't have to be that way."

Cr Thurley will run again at September's elections and said the Greens candidate for Albury, heritage consultant Ashley Edwards, would make a great councillor if elected.

"I've been on the sustainability advisory committee for eight and nine years and Ashley has been on that committee," he said.

"She's a hard-working, committed person."

If Ms Edwards, 36, had not put her hand up to run for the Greens, Dr Cohn would have gone for another term.

"There wasn't a particular moment that spurred it (the decision to stand down in September); I think it's something that I've been thinking about for a couple of years, really," she said.

"I would do a second term if there wasn't someone else that I trusted to support into that role and to continue with things that I've been working on, but that's not the case.

"I'm very hopeful in supporting Ashley Edwards for election in September that there will be another young woman in the next term of council."

Dr Cohn's work as a Gateway Health GP, involvement in SES and advocacy on the Albury-Wodonga Family and Domestic Violence Committee have informed her work as a councillor.

She is proud of what she has achieved.

"I think a few really important changes also happened in terms of the community's ability to participate in council decisions and to engage with council," Dr Cohn said.

"Really early in my term of council, I moved for the meetings to be live-streamed online, for our meeting briefing sessions to be made open to the public and to the media.

"That's going to make a difference long into the future after I'm gone.

"I'm particularly proud to have put the adoption of carbon emission targets and the phase out of single use plastics onto the agenda."

The legalisation of same-sex marriage and decriminalisation of abortion, which coincided with exclusion zones being introduced around clinics, were major moments Cr Cohn witnessed.

"Most Border Mail readers would be aware of the real crisis that we had with the local clinic being protested on a weekly basis and patients feeling frightened and harassed to access medical care," she said.

"It was disappointing that when I tried to make change to protect the clinic at a local government level, that that wasn't successful, but I think that was a really important step in getting all the people locally who cared about this issue to campaign together.

"It also drew attention to this issue in Albury so that state lawmakers could see what was happening.

"I had communications not only with Greens members of Parliament like Mehreen Faruqi, who put forward the first decriminalisation bill when she was in state Parliament, but our local member (Justin Clancy) who changed his mind on abortion during the campaign and in the end voted to decriminalise it.

"That campaign over many, many years by a huge group of women with really diverse experiences, putting that issue on the agenda - that got us the result we needed in the end."

Looking to the future, Dr Cohn hopes there can be a majority of women on Albury Council.

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"If part of the legacy that I leave is other young people, and particularly young women, stand in that space, then that's also something that I've achieved," she said.

"I like to think the deputy mayor could be any one of us in Albury, and I hope that just by being in that role for the last five years, it shows people that they can also have a go."