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Published: Tuesday, 13 October 2026 10:10
The last issue of depaNews was on 16 June, and not a peep from us in the meantime. It was not a bad issue, by the way, the good news on the Award to be made from the first pay period after 1 July, including the announcement of MyLeave, which is a qualitative change in how things operated in the industry, and then a report on the final day of depa V Thaler on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, no less, under the heading “Serial pest Thaler’s bad day in court”.
Then finishing with an hilarious insight into this contemptuous human being with an SMS to the CEO at Snowy Monaro complaining about not having his Council business papers and blaming her, alleging it was “deliberate… You organised this to annoy and frustrate me… why would my profile not be recognised? Because you had it removed is my suspicion”. To which the CEO responded in her usual exhaustively calm and civil way when she dealt with him, “you’ve spelt your name as Adrew.thaler, can you try again with”, and then provided his proper email address. Brilliant.
Good old Adrew.
When the case concluded with final written submissions, we were ready to get the first Anti-Bullying Order in Local Government in the new jurisdiction. Unfortunately, another anti-bullying application had been made for another employee treated unreasonably by Thaler. Cr Adrew challenged the jurisdiction. He started to challenge ours at the beginning but realised he was on a loser and withdrew.
But the USU application did fail on the grounds that the legislation is restricted to unreasonable behaviour “at work”, and their application had only four examples, two of which were not “at work”. Reduced to two examples, the application was withdrawn because the member concerned had poor health.
Given this judgement by the same Commissioner, handling ours, Commissioner Muir, the parties to our application were invited to make submissions about the relevance of the jurisdictional finding to our case. We did, more than one each back and forward, so the case itself only fully concluded at the end of August. That’s why we’ve had little to report.
As an aside, while we await the conclusion of our case, depa will separately be pressing LGNSW and the other unions to have it acknowledged in the Act that in Local Government there are people working who can be bullied outside the workplace - not “at work”, but because of their work. The jurisdiction should recognise that.
What else has Cr Andrew been up to?
He had an AVO taken out against him only last week by a female Councillor and was mentioned in the Local Court. He used his social media to announce that police had served him with an interim AVO against a Victorian woman which won’t be heard until next year, and he has the outstanding police action and application for an AVO by his neighbour. This is an extraordinary story that we covered in the April issue, including a link to a broadcast by 2GB’s Ben Fordham which is worth watching twice, under the heading "EXCLUSIVE - Cooma pest Andrew Thaler charged by police".
Underpinning all of this is the continuing argument about a three-month suspension imposed by the Office of Local Government on 28 July 2025. It was Thaler’s second suspension. All this misconduct and these suspensions pre-date our member, the CEO working at Snowy-Monaro!
This was appealed by the OLG to the NSW Court of Appeal on three grounds: the tribunal misapprehended a statutory function, it misapplied a principal from criminal sentencing to the disciplinary proceedings before it, and that the orders as to disciplinary action “were manifestly inadequate”.
OLG won, the Court emphasised Thaler failed to see the seriousness of this misconduct allowed the appeal on the other two grounds sending the proceedings back to NCAT to be determined in accordance with the law. Take that NCAT, the penalty had better be “manifestly adequate” next time. Well done OLG.
When NCAT, after that rebuke, suspends him, it will be his third suspension... He is heading irretrievably to be disqualified as a councillor.
We are confident our case will conclude before that happens.
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Published: Tuesday, 13 October 2026 15:04
MyLeave was the hardest fought achievement, the issue occupying more time of the Commission in mediation than any other, and a qualitative change in the industry providing a new flexibility for employees. It’s now all about cooperation. The Commission broke LGNSW’s obsession with restricting MyLeave if you had more than eight weeks annual leave. That’s a different and unrelated issue.
LGNSW has to stop listening to their advisory group of misery from HR and GMs.
It’s intended to break the mandatory restraints imposed over the years by reactionary HR/P&C functionaries and general managers - who much prefer it all to be black-and-white, founded on managerial prerogative and where everything requires the employer’s approval. The unimaginative and reluctant hate discretion - clearly they’re not prepared to back their own judgement.
We knew at the time there’d be many disappointed and hostile. Bit by bit we are dealing with those councils getting them to understand that the world has changed, the shackles are removed, a more cooperative approach to this form of leave has been imposed.
Leaving aside the transitional arrangements, this is the operational part of the clause in its entirety:
L. MYLEAVE
(i) Subject to this clause, an employee (other than a casual) shall be entitled to 1 week of MyLeave at ordinary pay during each year of service. MyLeave becomes available upon commencement or on each anniversary following the making of this Award.
(ii) MyLeave may be used by an employee for any purpose or activity and may be taken flexibly, in blocks of single or multiple hours or single or consecutive days.
(iii) Where practicable an employee must provide the Employer with advance notice of the intention to take MyLeave. Where an employee seeks to take more than 1 day of MyLeave consecutively, the Employer and employee shall agree on the period, provided that such agreement shall not be unreasonably refused.
(iv) MyLeave does not accumulate or accrue from year to year and is not paid out on termination of employment.
(v) An employee who is entitled to MyLeave can elect in writing that some, or all, of their unused MyLeave days be converted to sick leave (before it expires). Once such an election has been made it cannot be reversed.
(vi) Subject to exceptional circumstances, an employee’s election to convert unused MyLeave days to sick leave must occur at least a month prior to the employee’s anniversary date.
(a) To facilitate the election in subclause (v) an Employer is required once a year to provide:
(1) Notification (unless it is otherwise readily accessible) of an employee’s anniversary date; and
(2) Notification of the right to elect to convert unused MyLeave days.
(viii) The transitional MyLeave entitlements referred to in subclause (vii) do not accrue and expire upon an employee’s first anniversary following the making of the Award.
It’s a beautiful clause introducing a more cooperative arrangement in the workplace - it can be used for any purpose, if it’s practical you must provide advance notice, if it is impractical, you don’t, and if you want to take more than one day consecutively you are required to “agree on the period with your boss - providing that “such agreement shall not be unreasonably refused”!
Be kind to HR/P&C, they’re on a learning curve at the moment. It’s a novelty to have discretion instead of someone making the decision for you.
The Award Implementation Committee will focus on pulling Councils into line which are not doing the right thing. Please let us know if you think your council is doing the wrong thing, and we will put them on the list.
