November depaNews

A happy Premier in Cabinet last week

In the September issue of depaNews we featured the Premier’s announcement that the reform of local government would mean “less pencils and more people digging up roads”. We had no idea what that meant but were concerned it may have been an old-fashioned vision of local government - it being a long, long time since anyone much worked with a pencil. It was certainly bad grammar - it’s fewer pencils, not less.

We met with Local Government Minister Paul Toole in October and the Minister and his staff were keen to shift responsibility for this nonsensical observation to the Premier as the author of the “less pencils” vision. So, it wasn’t their fault. They seemed more aware that local government has moved well beyond pencils and a focus on digging up roads. It did trivialise things, didn’t it.

But if there were going to be fewer pencils in the Premier’s grand vision of local government, what was going to happen to the pencils? Now we know.

Friday last week marked 1500 days since Wagga Wagga developer Peter Hurst reneged on an agreement to apologise to two of our members.

He had made allegations to Wagga Wagga City Council which he couldn’t sustain. We described them in the November 2010 issue as “inaccurate, baseless, derogatory and offensive allegations” and they had been dismissed by the Council’s Internal Auditor after a comprehensive investigation.

The Industrial Relations Commission had recommended that the Council seek an apology from Mr Hurst and in response to the Council, Walsh and Blair lawyers advised they were acting for Peter Hurst and “we are instructed that our client will apologise to Council staff. The form of an apology will have to be the subject of agreement.”

That was pretty impressive. We all make mistakes and it’s important to clear the air and apologise for things that happen inadvertently or where you have simply been wrong. Everyone agrees with this, it’s what our mums taught us, after all.

Well, nearly all of us – we can update you about Bankstown next time.

But we didn’t even get the opportunity to have a good old-fashioned argument about the content of the apology because Peter Hurst just reneged. No explanation, just changed his mind - obviously trying to redress the gender inequality of the traditional wisdom that only a lady had the prerogative to change their mind. You go, girl!

But we thought his agreement to apologise said a lot about the man. A big man, both literally and metaphorically, we thought.

Clearly he wasn’t, so we have run a clock ever since on our home page reminding everyone that some people are honourable, and some aren’t.
But 1500 days is enough. The clock will be removed.

LGS Chair Bruce Miller “promises ESG to be retained”

On 22 April 2013, Investment Magazine, under the heading “New chair at LGS promises more growth, ESG” Chair Bruce Miller said the fund retained “its attention fixed firmly on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment strategies”.

He continued, “the fund’s unique ESG approach to investment has proven to be a successful formula that the fund will continue to build upon.” Oh yeah?

“Chief executive Peter Lambert said “a ‘surprisingly simple’ ESG investment approach has delivered a positive return despite the doubts of some. He added that, being a discrete portfolio in itself, it’s very easy to measure whether it’s adding value to members - and it has … We do find that, over the long term, we’ve had a positive outcome”.

Ethical Investor magazine on 30 October 2013 reported “Local Government Super vows to maintain its leadership in responsible finance despite the resignation of ethical investing stalwart Ian Robertson.” A vow clearly not written in blood. A non-core vow, perhaps.

In response to the Fund’s embracing of nuclear risk, we asked some questions and, amongst other things the fund responded with a letter dated 10 October, “the screening out of uranium mining/nuclear energy has to date not had a negative impact on historical returns.”

And this view, of no loss over the years, was reinforced when the LGS CEO, CIO and Sustainability Manager presented to the depa Committee of Management on 6 November. The sector itself was described as “not a very good performing sector”.

What does all this mean? Leaving aside boasts of continuing to build on the fund’s ESG commitment of more than a decade, it means that the decision to not hold uranium mining or nuclear energy stocks didn’t cost the fund anything. Nothing, no losses, no pain, no suffering and no exposure to the Fukushimas of the world.

But, unlike the decision of the Board in 2000 (when similar testing showed that in terms of returns it didn’t matter whether the Fund owned tobacco or not and the Fund decided they would rather not), on this occasion the Board in September decided that the screening against uranium mining/nuclear energy should go. Things have changed.

Having done so, uranium/nuclear stocks held by index managers in the international portfolios that would have been shorted*, using the “surprisingly simple” approach, so that the fund effectively didn’t hold them, would now be embraced and retained.

Which means that since 1 October, the fund has held shares to a value of around $4.5 million in six international nuclear energy companies.

In the 10 October reply the fund observed “to date the response by the media has been largely positive.”

But how about the responses are of members of the fund?

(*What is “shorted”?  Shorting stock is a way of making money when share prices go down. It allows an investor to borrow stock in a company where they believe the price will go down, sell the stock at the price it was borrowed at and, when the price does go down, buy it back, making a nice little earner. The stock is then returned to the original owner with the payment of a fee and the investor pockets the profit from selling stock they knew was going to go down. Shorting also allows an investor to quantify gains or losses form the process.)

“I’ve had worse”, says Director Tim Fletcher

Well, who’d be surprised Shoalhaven would struggle to get suitably qualified applicants to fill the positions vacated by members of ours deciding to go to places where they are treated with more dignity and respect? Apart from management at Shoalhaven.

More of that next month when our highly regarded Golden Turd award is announced for 2014.

Our long-running dispute with Shoalhaven has now concluded. More than 10 days of compulsory conferences in the IRC, all of which reinforced the Council’s hostility to openness, transparency and fair treatment of its staff.

Shoalhaven featured in July 2014 as an early favourite in our HR Awards with a comprehensive listing of all the contested matters in this long-running dispute. At that stage we said we were ahead seven nil and the Council was failing to score at all.

The mystery and secrecy of the obsolete job evaluation system continued.  We had forced the Council to re-evaluate two team leader positions that they had originally proposed would be 3/2, so that they could laterally transfer two employees into the jobs without additional pay and without running the risk of redundancies and, sure enough, they had rorted the system, they were really 3/3. So, we wanted other jobs re-evaluated as well, so they opposed that vigourously and, when the Commission encouraged them to do so, they begrudgingly did so without disclosing the effect of the agreed changes, so no one would have any idea. Again, Commission encouraged them to do so. And they did. I’ve lost score by now. A zillion to nil?

But that wasn’t the end of it. They contested the vacating of dates that had been set by agreement, unsuccessfully of course consistent with everything else they had tried, and even contesting our request to vacate a date, set in our absence by the IRC. They lost that too.

We had two other positions finally re-evaluated but, while we were not able to move them into 3/3, at least the members concerned know they had a chance to have the positions evaluated with their own input rather than being pressed down by Director of Planning and Development Services Tim Fletcher and the flunkies from HR.

The dispute concludes with the Council having agreed to implement version 20 of the OOSoft job evaluation system in 2015. This is the system which superseded version 19 in 1998.

The introduction of a Health and Wellbeing provision in the Award has really frightened the horses. Not to mention those people afraid of precedents or providing their supervisory staff and managers with a discretion.

A simple clause intended to allow employees to apply for access to days from their sick leave for activities that assist their health, fitness and wellbeing was greeted by the stone-wallers and wowsers putting up the barricades - trying to set up policies to restrict its application only for pre-arranged preventative medical appointments. Too many people were afraid of setting precedents, and the not just the old bustards at Wagga Wagga.

We would like to see Councils embrace the concept by having the consultative committee call for ideas about what could fall within the general category of health and well-being activities rather than simply putting up t a wall to prevent supervisors or managers considering whether someone could do with an afternoon bushwalking, or surfing, or doing a meditation course or yoga, or consultation on a program with a professional trainer, or a head-clearing game of golf, or tai chi in the mornings in a group, or whatever.

We would like to see a Council introduce the provision with a broad discretion to supervisors and managers to call it as they see it, understanding that rorting the system will destroy it forever, but providing real access to employees to do things to improve their health, fitness and well-being.

As depa was the originator of the clause, LGNSW invited us to speak at their HR group meeting in September. They did so with the warning that this was not a time to be talking about HR flunkies and unimaginative bureaucrats and, from our perspective, the meeting contained very few, if any, who that could fit into that category. Certainly none of them put their hands up to ask a question.

So, excited by the prospects of good things happening in the company of councils saying they were already doing things like that, depa offered a $500 prize to be awarded in 2015 for the Council which most embraces the spirit and intention of this provision and the desirability of access being provided to sick leave days for wide-ranging activities with limited restrictions.

We are talking to LGNSW about an appropriate way of managing this and judging it and the $500 prize, because giving people cash is a bit of a bad look in local government (particularly if you’re sitting in the back of the Lord Mayor’s Bentley in Newcastle), so the $500 will be available for the favourite charity of the winning Council.

We’ll keep you in the loop. Given what we have seen so far, some councils are looking at being broad and inclusive while many are looking at being narrow-focused and fearful.

Anyone for golf is the wrong question. Is there anyone who wouldn’t love a pleasant walk around Blackheath golf course, on a perfect early autumn day, in the company of friends and colleagues? Golf is not a good walk spoiled, it’s a great walk enhanced.

The first depa Union Picnic Day Golf Day was first held in 2004 to allow members to get together on the union picnic day holiday in the State Award in the company of their workmates and friends. It has been a very successful and enjoyable event won, over the years, by Blacktown, North Sydney twice, Penrith, Bankstown twice, Lithgow, Leichhardt and Canterbury.

It has been cancelled twice. Once in 2012 when far too much rain made the golf course unplayable and last year when we struggled to get sufficient members interested in playing. Well, we struggled until we announced that we had cancelled it and then the calls and emails came in from people who were going to play, but hadn’t told us.

The depa Union Picnic Day Golf Day will be held on Friday, 13 March 2015 at Blackheath golf course.

We know we have some keen golfers desperate for the day to be back on but all members are welcome to make up a team from their Council, or with friends in other councils and come and join us.

Golf is a game where the frequency with which you play or practice has little relationship to the quality of your performance. And yes, sometimes people do wonder why they bother, it’s a challenge, it’s fun and you only have to hit the ball properly once or twice to understand the attraction.

Everyone is welcome. All you need is an appreciation of the beauty of Blackheath and a sense of humour.

No need to respond yet, but if you want to get an early spot, email Margaret on . We will publish reminders in each issue of depaNews until then.

It’s never too late to remind us of HR people doing it badly. Got someone who handled something badly, was humiliated and withdrew all of the evidence of the folly but just refuses to apologise to remedy the hurt? We’d love to know.