Australian councils urged to refund ratepayers after spending big on Voice Yes campaigns

Chris O’Keefe has backed calls for councils to refund taxpayers after spending thousands of dollars promoting the Voice referendum.

The 2GB presenter made an extraordinary appeal on Monday denouncing the use of taxpayers’ money to support the Yes campaign in the run-up to the Voice.

Councils across the country have set aside money, with the City of Sydney one of the biggest contributors after setting aside $500,000 towards the cause.

The massive spending came despite all six Australian states voting against the referendum, with most voters turning against the referendum.

O’Keefe accused the municipalities of overshooting their target.

Sydney radio station 2GB Chris O’Keefe has demanded councils refund the fees they spent pushing Indigenous Voice to Parliament

“Local councils absolutely cannot spend taxpayers’ money on social causes,” he said, saying they had to deal with “rates, roads and rubbish”.

“They should all be offering discounts on rate announcements from next quarter.”

A listener’s suggestion that municipalities pressuring the Voice should offer some sort of refund or rate reduction was enthusiastically endorsed by O’Keefe.

“Anyone who wasted their taxpayers’ money advancing a cause that had nothing to do with them, and they didn’t ask those taxpayers if it was OK to push the ‘Yes’ cause,” he said.

O’Keefe cited the specific example of Lane Cove council on Sydney’s north shore, which he said had spent “thousands and thousands” on the Yes case “without ever asking their taxpayers if that was OK.”

‘Guess what?’ O’Keefe asked.

‘Of the 10,000 voters in Lane Cove, almost half (45 percent) voted no.’

Randwick Council, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, announced in June it was committing almost $29,000 to support the Yes cause.

Labor councilor Linda Scott said the move represented ‘the views of our community’, although this was not only reflected in a narrow ‘Yes’ victory with 55 per cent of residents voting for the Voice.

The City Council of Orange, in central west NSW, had supported the Yes cause since December last year, but once again seemed out of step with their taxpayers, with 16,000 voting No in the city, compared to just 7,000 who supported the Voice.

Councils across Australia have spent millions of taxpayers’ money supporting the Indigenous Voice to Parliament

Despite lavish spending at local government level, the Yes campaign faltered at the ballot box on Saturday

The city of Sydney and its mayor Clover Moore spent half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money to support the yes vote.

“It hasn’t changed the dial at all because a yes vote in Surry Hills means nothing (in deciding) whether a referendum will be passed,” O’Keefe said.

The package included $260,000 for a communications and engagement campaign, $160,000 for banners and up to $90,000 to support community events at historic municipal locations such as City Hall.

In August it was revealed that the council had also given Yes supporters $25,000 worth of free office space in the city’s CBD to help with their campaign.

The Yes23 team, in line with the agreement with the council, set up operations for three months in prime CBD real estate in the form of the Town Hall House on Kent Street.

The Melbourne City Council has also committed resources to support the Yes cause, along with the Merri-Bek City Council in the North, which has committed $22,000 to host forums, provide grants and display promotional materials to support the Voice.

Fremantle in WA has allocated $35,500 to spend on the Voice