What started as a standard request to approve a three-year $1.18 million Microsoft contract renewal quickly became a broader clash over whether councillors or the chief executive should have the final say on operational spending.
This figure includes the fixed annual price plus expected yearly price reviews by Microsoft that could push costs above $1 million.
As the figure came over the $1 million threshold of what chief executive Pauline Gordon can approve, under governance rules councillors had to authorise the renewal.
Central to the argument was a provision allowing the chief executive to approve future price variations without returning to the council — a move intended to handle currency-related cost fluctuations efficiently.
Before councillors entered debate, Cr Luke Sharrock asked for the provision to be removed from the motion, arguing any variations should be brought back to council, especially if they exceeded the $1 million amount.
Cr Adrian Weston spoke for the removal of the amendment and said if there were variations that came over the life of the contract, it should come back before council because of the amount being spent.
Cr John Zobec agreed and said while it may be only a small price variation, it was about sticking to the governance rules in place.
“Our community wants to know what are we doing in the chamber; therefore, I think we need to be open and transparent,” he said.
Cr Zoe Cook opposed removing the amendment, arguing that delegating price variation approvals to the chief executive would free up council time for other issues.
“I don’t think that is a good use of our time for it to be brought back to us, just to re-agree and re-debate this for a trivial increase in cost,” she said.
Cr Rob Amos clarified that the motion wasn’t about giving the chief executive power to change the contract, but rather to approve minor price variations caused by US dollar currency exchange fluctuations.
The vote to remove the third point failed, with Crs Sharrock, Weston and Zobec supporting removal, while Crs Jessica Mitchell, Paul Jarman, Daniel Mackrell, Tony Marwood, Cook and Amos opposed it.
Once the motion to remove the amendment had failed, debate began over the contract itself.
Crs Weston and Zobec criticised the lack of briefing given to councillors around this topic before the meeting.
“It’s unfortunate because a lot of the to-ing and fro-ing that has happened... potentially could have been clarified as part of a briefing session,” Cr Weston said.
When brought to the vote, it passed 5-3.
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