It was a 'procedural error'
There has been a lot of action at Blayney since 10 May when depa wrote to the General Manager demanding an apology from both the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor. From the Mayor, because he allowed bad behaviour at a Council meeting, and from the Deputy Mayor because he behaved badly - breaches of the Code of Conduct and the Council’s own Code of Meeting Practice aplenty.
Unhappy about the lack of application and progress by the General Manager, and a failure to return our phone call or we would make a complaint to the Division of Local Government, we made a complaint - asking the Division to deal in particular with the misrepresentation recorded within the minutes of the June meeting of the Council. As an aside, it turns out that the General Manager failed to comply with our deadline because he was in a meeting with the Mayor tendering his resignation! Apology accepted.
Despite an agreement by the three directors that none of them would be prepared to act as Acting GM, one did but he continued to exhibit the reluctance exhibited by the exiting GM to take the councillors on and to process the Code of Conduct complaint made by depa.
All this became too much and we filed a dispute which was listed before Commissioner Ritchie in the Commission on 6 July. By this stage the bans had been in place for six weeks and no one much at the Council seemed too interested in having them lifted. The bans were on any services at all to Councillor Radburn the Deputy Mayor but also to any meeting at which Councillor Radburn may be present and involved in discussions. This included a refusal to supply anything from the Environmental Services Division for the July business paper.
We went into the compulsory conference with Commissioner Ritchie with a prepared statement that had been negotiated with the Acting GM over the phone the day before. He was happy with its content, we were going to ask the Commission to issue it as a formal Statement and Recommendation and the only proviso was that the Shires Association would review it for any fine tuning. Having spoken to the Shires Association, we thought we had it under control.
But five minutes before the compulsory conference we were handed a copy of what we had understood to be the agreed statement, with amendments to 70% of the document - all primarily aimed at removing any acknowledgement of wrongdoing or guilt by either the exiting General Manager or any of the Councillors. Nice.
This is not a usual practice in an industrial dispute where there is a substantial agreement prior to proceedings in the Commission. If you want to see how overwhelming were the changes being sought by the Council to protect the underperformers and the guilty, click here. They wanted everything removed from the draft agreement that is crossed out with a pen.
It fell to Commissioner Ritchie to make sense of how there could be a substantially agreed document one day and then the following day, substantial disagreement. We had trouble believing it too and put it down to bad advice after the agreement was reached from both the Shires Association and locally.
The following day the Commission issued a statement recommending that the Council expedite the Code of Conduct complaint and that depa lift the bans. The Statement also noted the observation made by Deputy President Grayson in August last year in the Wagga Wagga dispute:
"It is, of course, trite to observe, but nonetheless again in the context of these observations, entirely appropriate to observe, that Council bears various obligations to its employees, including but not limited to the significant obligation of duty of care to protect employees against damage to their personal and professional reputation."
The investigation has been expedited. We did that ourselves the day of the compulsory conference, sick of the clumsy fumbling by the Council that had seen confusion over who had actually made the complaint and tardiness by the external Reviewer to acknowledge a correction by the GM that the complaint was actually made by depa and not by an employee. Sometimes you just have to do things yourself.
Members met the morning of 12 July and lifted the bans. This coincided with a special meeting of the Council to consider a rescission motion moved by three councillors over the fraudulent minutes which misrepresented what actually happened at the Council meeting at the time of the walkout. At least there was a minority of the councillors who knew it was a cover-up.
Under the watchful eye of a Senior Investigator from the Division of Local Government (responding to the complaint we had made to the Division about this developing fiasco), the Council resolved to revert to the original draft prepared for them by staff before it was amended by the motion of those who wanted to change history.
The Mayor explained to a packed gallery (because this is big news at Blayney) that the fraudulent minutes they had voted for, misrepresenting what actually had happened, were nothing more than a” procedural error”.
As if.
The Division’s Senior Investigator also spent time with the Mayor explaining how things worked in local government and at the same time the three directors of the Council with our local delegate Greg Prince were drafting a policy document on the Council’s duty of care to be considered at a special meeting this Thursday. It will go to the Council meeting as a recommendation by the three Directors and with the support of the freshly appointed Acting General Manager.
Watch this space.
When the incoming Minister for Local Government Don Page announced to a packed Shires Association Conference that the first step to "shape the future of local government in New South Wales" was to invite all the mayors and general managers to Dubbo, what better possible response could there be than the famous quote from the hotelier Basil Fawlty. (The Hotel Inspectors episode, for the enthusiasts.)
Because if you really want to do something that is an exciting initiative, something that really will shape the future of local government over the next 25 years, the last people you would want to invite would be the people with the most to lose. Particularly if you are not going to invite anyone else.
Far too many councils are trading insolvent, can't afford to reflect the demands of the market to pay to attract and retain good staff, can't afford to train staff etc etc. Clearly someone needs to put a rocket up the amalgamation process and the last people to ask would be the people who have the big jobs and the most to lose – mayors and GMs.
How about 50 councils across the State? What was wrong with the recommendation of the Sproats’ enquiry what, 15 years ago? Who wants to change something that puts them out of a job?
50 councils, suddenly 100 fewer general managers and 1000 fewer councillors. What’s not to like?
As the news was absorbed by the industry (to the sound of mayors and general managers preening) the USU launched an attack on the one-dimensional nature of the invitation list and our own discussions with the Government revealed that they really did intend the invitations to go broader rather than restrict the Dubbo talkfest to asking the cat.
The team (L to R): George Kalivitis, Stephen Pratt, Greg Liddle
with Canterbury GM Jim Montague
On 15 July, Canterbury GM Jim Montague presented the depa Cup to the triumphant team of three Canterbury and one ex-Canterbury members and provided a sumptuous lunch with an invitation to all depa members to attend. We have 27 members at depa, so thanks, Jim.
It’s been a long time coming. Originally planned to be presented by the Mayor and local Lambourgini test driver Councillor Robert Furolo, this became too hard to manage when the mayor was also elected as the local member at the NSW election.
But Jim was happy to step in. One of the old breed of general managers (and we do mean that in the nicest way) Jim has always understood the importance of protecting staff against councillors behaving badly and the sort of fiasco at Wagga Wagga last year, and Blayney this year, would never happen under his watch. Nice to see a general manager prepared to remind councillors of their proper role. There are plenty who aren't game.
Jim complemented depa and acknowledged our tradition (okay, so eight years isn't much of a tradition yet) of a sporting competition that allows all members to participate as part of the rich cultural life of local government.
Roll on Union Picnic Day Golf Day 2012.
