Is it really just about ‘rubbish and rates’ or are pro-Israel campaigners plotting against the Greens in Sydney’s looming council elections? Wendy Bacon examines the evidence from a number of inner-city councils.

When placards urging people to ‘Put Greens Last’ in Saturday’s local government elections started popping up in Sydney’s Inner West and Eastern Suburbs, the first question people asked was: “Who authorised the placards?” Electoral laws require that all campaigning material is authorised.

The answer was found in small letters at the bottom of the placards – Sophie Calland of Better Council Inc., Quay Quarter Tower, 50 Bridge Street, Sydney.

The message inviting others to join the campaign reads, “Together we can create change. Rubbish, not radicals.” The implication is that the Greens, instead of focussing on nitty-gritty local issues like rubbish collection, are focussed on international issues, especially conflict in the Middle East.

When we visited 50 Bridge Street to see if we could find Better Council, we found ourselves in the heart of corporate Australia – a long way indeed from ‘rates and rubbish’. Quay Quarter is a plush high-rise that houses Deloitte and other blue-chip corporate clients such as Barclays and Barrenjoey.

The concierge had no idea where Better Council Inc. might be found but did mention there was a co-working space on the second floor for which there was no list of tenants.

Better Council Inc.

Better Council Inc. was registered with the Electoral Commission by DBK Pty Ltd, a one-dollar company launched in May this year by a single director and owner, Alexander Polson.

Polson describes his “boutique advisory” company as involved in “Business Growth, Advocacy, Public Policy”. He promises to empower family offices, growth companies, and non-profits across MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and APAC (Asia Pacific). Despite these impressive corporate aims, one of its first activities has been to launch and organise the Better Council Inc political campaign.

The campaign has a single goal – to dislodge Greens councillors from the LGAs of Woollahra, Randwick, Waverley and Inner West Councils.

If Better Council’s website is any indication, we would say DBK’s work for Better Council has been done in a hurry. Its webpage is, let’s say, preliminary.

While Sophie Calland told the Daily Telegraph that she was a Labor Party member, Polson‘s links are with the Liberal party. He was a staffer for Liberal and now shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Senator Simon Birmingham. Since then, he has been a manager of government and industry affairs for the Commonwealth Bank and a senior marketing manager of APAC until he went out into business on his own to form DBK.

Sophie Calland, one of the group’s organisers who authorised the placards, describes the Better Council group as a “non-partisan grassroots group of young professionals who are passionate about keeping local government focused on local issues”. Calland told Crikey last week that she isn’t concerned about any specific international issue, such as the war on Gaza.

A Zionist campaign?

However, some investigation into the group’s leadership suggests that its key aim is to promote Zionism and support for Israel’s policies, pushing back against the threat of councillor and community support for Palestinian rights against what they believe is Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories.

It has expressed no concern about Liberal Councillors’ efforts to promote support for Israel through Council motions and Israeli flag-flying at Woollahra Council.

MWM has watched part of a recording of Better Council’s organising meeting on Sunday evening.

The main presenter at the meeting was Alexander Polson. His approach is professional and smooth, which is not surprising given his senior political and business experience. His message is a standard one for election campaigning, with advice to booth workers like ‘stick to key messages’ and ‘don’t get bogged down in answering detailed questions or arguments’.

Polson’s message was clear and specific: the purpose is to keep Greens off Council because “what they have been doing for the last few years is raising rates and reducing parking and spending a lot of money on unrelated issues.”

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Fair message or misinformation?

Even if this statement was generally true of the four targeted councils, the Greens could not possibly be responsible for it. They don’t control any of the four Councils. When Greens and Labor vote together, they can get new policies through Randwick City Council and have a shared Mayoralty; Greens Philippa Veitch is the current Mayor. Labour sometimes backs Greens initiatives, but sometimes they combine with the Liberals.

In the Inner West, Labor has regularly used its majority of one to exercise control and to block initiatives from Greens and Independent Councillors.

Local government rates in NSW are set by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of NSW. It sets a rate peg and has to approve any variations. This applies to all Councils.

Last year, Inner West Labor supported an increase in Council fees and charges. Several Greens and independent Councillor John Stamolis unsuccessfully opposed this on the grounds that it would unjustifiably hurt the community at a time of a cost of living crisis.

Greens have not been responsible for any reductions in parking. In Randwick the only reduction in parking was for a major bike path project on Doncaster Road.

This was built with funding from the former Liberal state government and had strong community support.

Inner West Labor ‘rewarded’

When the Better Council’s meeting came to Question Time, one woman asked what she should say in relation to questions about why she was opposed to Greens childcare policies. She was told that these were just ‘marketing’.

In response to a question about the childcare policy, Greens MLC and spokesperson on Local Government Amanda Cohen said that Greens supported local government directly providing “high quality and affordable early education and care across NSW. More places in council-run childcare would make a tangible difference to so many families, especially with the current cost of living.”

Another person asked why Better Council Inc was not targeting Labor in Randwick, where Labor opposed a Liberal motion of no confidence in the Greens Mayor Philippa Veitch, ensuring its defeat.

Polson responded that this was a “good question” and explained that the reason for not targeting Labor in Randwick was that in the Inner West, Labor had made an unpopular decision and stood by the Jewish community. This was a reference to the role Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne and seven Labor councillors played in defeating a motion for an audit of the Inner West Council’s investments in Israel and making untrue accusations of anti-semitism against its supporters.

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Given that Byrne’s Mayoralty and Labor’s control of the Council is on the line this weekend, Labor will greatly appreciate this reward.

Better Council Israel connections

Other organisers at the meeting were Hagit Ashual and Michael Manhaim. Both have very strong Israeli Zionists connections.

Until July this year, Ashual was the full-time operations director at the Zionist Council of NSW, and before that, she was the full-time program manager for the Australian Union of Jewish Students. She is an organiser for #TogetherwithIsrael.

On a visit to Canberra as part of a delegation that met with the Federal Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and Opposition leader Peter Dutton, she was quoted in Australian Jewish News as saying, “Having those conversations as Israelis, gives another perspective to our story. I think we bring something else to the table that is authentic. We have served in the army, lived through rocket attacks, experienced wars and intifada.”

Manhaim has a degree in government, diplomacy and strategy from Reichman University in Israel. Until 2018, he was a Vice Director of the Scouts movement in Israel. He then came to Australia to work with the Israeli Scouts (Australia).

When he retired from the role last year, Manhaim told Australian Jewish News how proud he was of the growth of the scouts, which has even spread to Byron Bay. The aim is to strengthen Israeli-Australian families and share Israeli culture so that Israeli Zionists can be more included in the Australian Jewish community.

Since 2018, his LinkedIn profile also states that he has worked with the Jewish Agency for Israel with the pro-Netanyahu Zionist Federation of Australia.

Sophie Calland was also on the Zoom meeting to organise the election day and prepol teams. She has described herself as a member of the Labor Party and a young professional. She graduated as a software computer engineer last year. Between 2021 and 2023, she worked at Penten, which, according to its website, supports the increased adoption of its key products among Australian government customers, including in defence, intelligence and security agencies.

Penten’s annual revenue has more than doubled over the past three years. Penten’s work includes “creating … highly realistic networks required to effectively delay, divert or deceive” adversaries, an adversary is time-consuming, expensive and resource intensive.”

One of its products is Deception. AI – a powerhouse artificial intelligence solution that reduces the cost to design and deploy the highly realistic fake Networks required to detect, monitor and engage sophisticated cyber adversaries. Another is Trap radio, which is designed to use artificial intelligence to generate radio traffic to create realistic decoys and fields from base stock. Another product “greatly simplifies the process of mimicking both friendly and enemy communications to mislead adversaries.”

Sophie Calland has stated to MWM that Better Council has no position on Gaza, but the group has such strong Israeli connections that it begs the question

if Better Council is a foreign agency requiring registration rather than a local community organisation worried about local Sydney issues.

Activists, not localists

In fact, most of the recruits that are out handing out for the group have little knowledge of relevant local issues, which is why they were advised at Sunday’s meeting not to engage on specific local questions.

When one person at the meeting asked about what she should say if asked about the Greens’ affordable childcare policies, she was told this and other Greens policies were “marketing” ploys.

Greens MLC, spokesperson for Local Government and former Deputy Mayor at Albury Council, Dr Amanda Cohn, explained the Greens’ childcare policy as being in support of “Local government directly [providing] high quality and affordable early education and care across NSW. More places in council-run childcare would make a tangible difference to so many families, especially with the current cost of living.”

She said that a review of the minutes of the four Councils would demonstrate that the Greens’ focus is on local issues. This includes upgrading local facilities, supporting local events and activities as well as backing positive environmental and community initiatives.

Woollahra LGA candidate campaigning for Better Council

Tresna Karras is a candidate for Residents First in the Vaucluse Ward of Woollahra Council. Given that she has lived in Vaucluse for 40 years, she probably knows the local issues well. On Tuesday, rather than staffing a Residents First prepoll booth in LGA Woollahra, she was over at Petersham PrePoll in the Inner West working for Better Council, urging voters to put last the Stanmore Ward Greens lead candidate, retired senior public servant Liz Atkins.

Even before Better Council arrived in the Inner West, Atkins’ posters were being defaced and her letterboxed leaflets destroyed. The reason for the strong focus on Councillor Atkins is that after her first four years working in the local community, some are anticipating that she could win two quotas (allowing a second Green rather than a Liberal to be elected).

She is a member of the LBTQI community, and even in the last few weeks, she has been focused on ensuring that a local park is not partly privatised without community consultation.

The following day, Tresna Karras was at Maroubra Prepoll campaigning against Randwick Greens councillor Kym Chapple.

Who’s the better local?

Better Council claims to be about the failure of the Greens to deal with local issues. It is, as Callend says, bi-partisan. However, it is supported by the Christian Zionist Group ‘NeverAgainisNow’, which states on its website that one of its members is Labor Friends of Israel.

It is true that the Greens do support Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) policies and support for Palestinian rights in Councils, unions and universities. But in reality these policies have occupied a very small amount of time over this term of NSW local government. Liberal Councillors have also moved motions in support of Israel which have also taken up a small amount of time.

But this is not about time taken in local politics for globally focused initiatives. It’s about Better Council’s hidden agenda, which is far more about supporting Israel’s war effort, silencing critical voices and global rather than local politics.

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This post was originally published on Michael West.