June depaNews

And get people elected like this …

When the Government suspended Auburn Council and set up an inquiry into their planning decisions and whether councillors had complied with their obligations under the Local Government Act, the community lost the joys of the democratic process - people like Ned Attie,  ex-councillor and, for a period of time, Mayor.

Mr Attie, or suspended Councillor Attie to be properly respectful, gave evidence to the Auburn Public Inquiry on 16 June and without any apparent discomfort or embarrassment, made confessions like the ones above.

His evidence shows a general lack of awareness of the recommendations of council’s planning staff. In a public inquiry about notorious planning decisions and the role of councillors, he said, amongst other things - “again, like I said, I don’t recall this, but if it was part of the Council documents, then possibly”; quite a few “I can’t recall”; “I skimmed through”; “that is why we are elected as councillors. We represent the views of the community, not the staff”, and in an almost transcendental moment said, “I make those assessments internally between myself”. That must be quite a tussle - the sort of internal debate envisaged by those most alarmed about the loss of local democracy.

This also intrigued the Commissioner to the extent that he asked “do you have any regard to what the planning staff recommend?” And while suspended Councillor Attie insisted that he did, and that sometimes he agreed and sometimes he disagreed, he saw the role of professional planning staff as quite different and quite limited in their considerations. “They don’t bring in the emotional aspect or the community aspect into anything they do.”

Here is a bloke with significant experience on a Council notorious for allegations of vested interests, looking after developers and not the community, and a flamboyant, threatening and ostentatious Deputy Mayor who made application to the Council to close street and use helicopters to film a “feature film”, which was really the recording of the fairytale wedding that made the tacky Kardashians envious.

Even virgin or fledgling councillors understand that a planning instrument is developed with significant community consideration and, primarily, to protect the community for emotional, heritage, architectural, environmental, privacy and protection of amenity and quiet enjoyment of your own property. Suspended Councillor Attie is simply wrong. And to demonstrate we are not being vindictive about Ned Attie, we’re not going to even mention the story “Confused mayor votes against himself” in the Sydney Morning Herald on 23 November 2012. Other than saying it doesn’t surprise us at all.

When suspended councillor Attie’s lawyer predictably intervened and objected to the line of questioning the Commissioner defended the line taken by Counsel Assisting as “exploring whether the councillors have fulfilled their obligations under the Act”. The lawyer reacted with “it doesn’t fall within the terms of reference” but was slammed by the Commissioner responding “of course it does” - helpfully noting that Term of Reference 1 “includes section 439 of the Local Government Act regarding reasonable care and diligence.”

While we can’t wait for the findings from this inquiry, it puts the whole emotional argument about how people are affected by the loss of local democracy into perspective. While staff love working for a Council not comprised of dilettantes, the self-interested, developers, real estate agents, sharks, spivs, crooks and boofheads, when you look at some of the revelations being made in the public inquiry, the inverse relationship between the democratic election of councillors and the concept of merit is starkly and uncomfortably reinforced.

Take your time, Premier. Let the administrators make the decisions under current planning instruments without the demonstrated shortcomings of the democratic process. What possible value can people like this add to the quality of residents’ lives?

Viv the Vivisector

It all hit the fan on Thursday 12 May when the NSW Government by proclamation amalgamated 42 councils into 19 new local government areas. The proclamations included the appointment of administrators to be the Council until election in September 2017, interim General Managers and, depending on how many GMs of the existing councils remained standing, one or more deputy GMs to provide certainty and continuity of their employment.

There had been a consensus view amongst the three unions and LGNSW that there needed to be some form of protection provided to senior staff beyond the 38 weeks’ payout under the standard contract. The Government, through the Office of Local Government and Department of Premier and Cabinet, was also working with the parties to the Award to provide comfort to local government employees at the time of high uncertainty and dramatic change. It was all about happiness generation and protecting morale.

So, when the new Cumberland Council Administrator Viv May met with a displaced Auburn GM and an undisplaced Auburn Deputy GM on the morning after the proclamation, he revealed quickly and dramatically that being named as a Deputy GM in the proclamation provided no certainty or continuity, and those contracts were terminated that day.

(In the interests of full disclosure, the Administrator’s evidence before the Auburn Public Inquiry stated that while he terminated the employment of the Auburn GM, he did so “at his request”.)

But the Deputy GM hadn’t asked to be sacked and, the current tally of senior staff gone is five. It’s not so much the number (because Georges River has seen off one GM, three directors and one IT Manager and Inner West has seen off two GMs, three directors and one other Director position temporarily filled) but the unseemly speed with which it all happened in an environment the Government was carefully constructing to avoid frightening the horses.

In all the amalgamations, those staff who watched their GM disappear felt the loss - and it didn’t matter whether it happened fast or in some sort of agreed way over time. It is reasonable to say that the removal of some much-loved GMs, and some much-respected GMs, poisons the water from which all other employees drink.

But you have to hand it to Viv. The Vivisector started spilling blood before the proclamation was even 24 hours old and provided a role for us to get the DLG to intervene and at least reference in the termination letters a regulation scheduled for the following week that ensures the termination payment is a redundancy, but not quite the “bloodbath” with the unions the Vivisector was hoping for.

Interim GM Merv Ismay, ex-GM of Holroyd (both much-loved and much-respected) decided that it was a pretty good time to take his retirement and Cumberland is the first Council, within a month of the proclamation, to have appointed a second interim GM. The quinella - the first sackings the first interim GM pulling the pin.

Viv has always been a polarising person. As GM at Mosman he was inspired on a managerial study tour to the UK in 1980 by the Thatcherite model. He came back to Australia enthused about the joys of privatisation and contracting out and successfully contracted out all of Mosman Council’s outdoor staff. A model that the employees of Cumberland are well-aware of and, were it not for their three years’ protection, would be a real prospect.

The Employment Matters Working Party, comprising the DPC, OLG, LGNSW, USU, LGEA and depa, meets every fortnight to allow the Government to consult with those with the expertise in employment in local government, and to inform the Government using that collective expertise developed over more than two decades of cooperative employment relationships.

The OLG provides weekly FAQs to new councils through the Stronger Council’s website. There were plenty of bizarre anti-employee interpretations of the employment protections under the Act (yes, many of you lot in HR) and the FAQs have now included clarification and certainty with the agreed consensus wording:

Do the employment protections prescribed under the Local Government Act 1993 for staff affected by mergers apply to individuals or the positions they hold?

An Employment Matters Reference Group has been established to advise the Chief Executive of the Office of Local Government on matters impacting on the statutory and policy framework governing employment by councils, including any issues arising from merger implementation. Membership of the group includes Local Government NSW, the United Services Union, the Local Government Engineers Association of NSW and the Development and Environmental Professionals’ Association.   Advice by the Group is provided to the Chief Executive with the consensus of all members of the Group.

The consensus view of the Group is that the protections conferred on staff of councils affected by mergers or boundary alterations under the Local Government Act 1993 apply to individual staff members and not to the position they hold. This means that irrespective of the position they hold at the time of a merger or boundary alteration or subsequently hold in a new council, non-senior staff:

• cannot be made redundant without their agreement as a result of the transfer for three years following the merger or boundary alteration  
• must continue to be employed under the same terms and conditions unless they voluntarily consent to the alteration of their terms and conditions  
• cannot be transferred to a work base outside the former council’s local government area unless:
  • they give their written consent to the transfer, or  
  • the transfer would not cause them to suffer unreasonable hardship because of the distance they would be required to travel to their new work base.

See how much progress is made when the dilettantes and dabblers at LGPA recognise that they’re not experts in industrial matters and leave it those who are?

Just when you thought you were was safe from Dorothy, the cowardly Lion, the heartless Tin Man and the brainless Scarecrow, LGPA has provided some misleading advice to the industry in marketing their LG Forum on Council Mergers on 30 June. This lot had abandoned giving advice to senior staff on employment issues in amalgamations with advice from President Barry Smyth that if senior staff are members of the three unions, that’s where the advice should come from, because LGPA is not an industrial organisation.

But the marketing of the Forum includes a workshop called “Bringing Two Salary Systems Together” run by some bloke called Bob Davidson, claimed to be an “EBA Specialist”. No one I’ve spoken to has any idea who this bloke is, and if you go Google or go to LinkedIn, he can either be a finance professional, an itinerant labourer or potentially a consultant at Davidson Workplace Solutions. And if you Google Davidson Workplace Solutions you find someone called Rob Davidson, who, from his brief profile is apparently a man.

So, why would LGPA think it made sense to wheel in a bloke, and we mean a bloke, and describe him as an “EBA Specialist”, when an EBA is something that happens under the Fair Work Act and has nothing to do with local government in New South Wales? Is it because I have no idea what they’re talking about?

The most important thing about deciding what to do about salary Systems in each Council, is to involve the unions.

So, the unions collectively wrote to the councils (although the Interim GM of the Council on the link is too smart to fall for this LGPA stunt) who received this marketing guff and pointing out, amongst other things, that “if the Council wants that advice, it should get it from LGNSW.” Not some anonymous person, who could be either Bob or Rob, or both, with an expertise in the Federal System, which is not even mentioned on the website of Davidson Workplace Solutions.

We’ve had a fluctuating relationship with the Food Authority over the years. We’ve criticised them for a lack of consultation; warmed to them when they committed to try harder; complained about bullying a new representative of ours on the Forum; allowed them to review how the Forum has been operating in having past and present representatives interviewed by the consultant after accepting that some things could be handled more sensitively, and now we have relatively high expectations for the future.

Even more so, when they call a meeting of the Forum to start at 1pm, for example, then they shouldn’t ask a few people if they’re happy to meet earlier, not ask some others, and then meet earlier.

depa has two representatives on the Food Regulation Forum and we have had two representatives since the days of our complaints about the lack of consultation and the Authority and NSW Health committed to properly consult with local government.

The Food Regulation Forum should be all about proper consultation with local government and the purpose of this note in depaNews is to remind EHOs with an interest in what goes on at the Forum that our two representatives are Julie Kisa, an EHO from Inner West Council (ex Marrickville) and Corey Stoneham, Manager - Environment and Health at Camden Council.

Both are relatively new representatives and are enthusiastic to hear from EHOs and other members with any operational or relationship issues arising from the Food Regulation Partnership in place between the Authority and Councils.

Julie and Corey he would be delighted to hear from you and to raise issues on your behalf. You can contact them on and .