2026 State Award negotiations continue

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Published: Tuesday, 17 February 2026 16:36

Like an evenly matched tug-of-war, we work our way through the negotiations. Tomorrow it will be the eighth day we have met - still in a Socratic way, without sledging, arguing about the changes that we should make for the 2026 Award. We now start to meet weekly. We are under pressure to have an “in principle” agreement between us by the last week of March.

As far as we’re all concerned, it’s all about the money. Interest rates, Treasury projections of 4% inflation in 2026, and the increasing cost of living all mean that must be the primary focus.

The unions pressed the employers to recognise that while wages have kept in line with inflation over the last decades, we’ve never had the opportunity to provide increases that will actually attract and retain people to the industry. The employers don’t match the unions’ enthusiasm, but what could possibly go wrong with that approach?

General Manager protection

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Published: Tuesday, 17 February 2026 16:36

The brutal treatment handed out to the former GM of Parramatta, aided and abetted by grubby local media, has brought things to a head. It’s time to provide better protection for General Managers.

It may have taken decades, but senior staff have better protection after removing the concept of senior staff from the Local Government Act and employing those people under the Local Government State Award or local Enterprise Agreements, where they apply. And having access to the Industrial Relations Commission for Unfair Dismissal.

When the senior staff legislation was introduced into the Legislative Assembly, everything was very celebratory and in a casual lunch in Parliament House we discovered what has to be the best kept secret in local government. The Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig announced he had always thought General Managers should be better protected.

We emailed the Office of Local Government to have this issue discussed by the next meeting of the Employment Matters Reference Group, an employment group established by the Office at the time of the mergers to deal with employment considerations which found that there were good reasons for it to continue.

Amongst other things, we said:

Our Committee of Management unanimously resolved at their last meeting on 20 November:

Following the termination of the General Manager at Parramatta City, Gail Connolly, as a result of political battles amongst councillors, depa resolves to take all steps, starting with an approach to OLG and the Minister for Local Government, to achieve consensus that it’s time to be extending protections now available to former senior staff, to general managers.

I know that we have discussed this in the past and LGNSW has had little appetite for curtailing the rights of their members to remove general managers for a variety of reasons (or none at all, meaning that there was a reason but it couldn't be published) but you never know your luck.

We've always taken the view that if there isn't consensus on extending the senior staff provisions to General Managers, then making the "no reason" termination provision something significantly more than 38 weeks, would assist in putting a stop to these practices. Or at the very least make councillors think more financially responsibly about the cost, and the risk of public/political humiliation.

65 weeks sounds like a reasonable compromise.

Unfortunately, despite our best intentions, I was in the IRC at the time of the meeting, and the Committee hasn’t met since. Maybe it was our suggestion that the current 38 weeks exit payment “for any reason”, should five weeks become 65 weeks that has struck them dumb. That amount of money should make councillors spend a bit more time contemplating the departure of the GM.

Don’t bother sending us anonymous letters

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Published: Tuesday, 17 February 2026 16:36

Over the last few months, we have received an anonymous letter every now and again, about the treatment of employees at a particular council and requesting action. Anonymous letters get the treatment they deserve in our office, anyone can assert they are a member or make any allegation, and we can’t check or verify. So, a quick read, and out they go.

We’re happy to be involved everywhere, whether we have members in management about whom complaints are being made or whatever, but no one responds to anonymous complaints because they have no integrity. Anyone who wants anything done can have letters or emails dealt with complete confidentially, but we can’t talk to anonymous people.

In the third letter, a question was asked about whether we had done or could do something, and we wonder, what sort of person makes an anonymous complaint, and then asks for a response? Never a dull minute, in our office.

We’re having an election

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Published: Tuesday, 17 February 2026 16:36

depa’s Committee of Management is a President, a Vice President, four Members of the Committee, and the Secretary. That’s seven members, all of whom are elected democratically to manage the running of the union, make decisions, set policy and oversee our activities.

On 9 March the NSW Electoral Commission will post an Election Notice to all financial members. It will also go on their website. Nominations will be open until 23 March 2026.

If there are no more nominations than candidates, those candidates will be declared elected. If there are more candidates, the Electoral Commission will conduct a ballot.

The President, Vice President, and four Committee members have two-year term terms and are up for re-election, and the Secretary has a four-year term and is up for election as well.

This is all about the democratic management of the union, and all that financial members need to nominate is the nominated and seconded by two other financial members.

Historically, members of the Committee have been activists before they stand, as our delegate, and/or member of the Consultative Committee, and some have been in those active roles for decades. Given the difficulty we have finding delegates, we are lucky to have them.

If you’re interested in standing for election and wondering about likely obligations and how much time will be involved, contact me in the office and we can tell you.

Government gets their way on workers’ comp

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Published: Tuesday, 17 February 2026 16:35

In the November issue we announced “Minns Government smashed on Workers Comp” when the government didn’t have the numbers in the Upper House to push through their hostile attack on Whole Person Injury, in particular, to make it almost impossible for anyone to satisfy the test.

We announced there was a new “Workers’ hero” after a former Liberal in the Legislative Council, Taylor Martin, announced he wouldn’t be “the patsy for this government”. Unions were celebrating, but Unions NSW Secretary Mark Morey always warned us about never under-estimating Treasurer Daniel Mookey, and eventually the Workers’ hero lost the mantle, and the changes were made.

But it could have been worse. Here is a list of achievements, significant concessions made in the brawling to protect workers compensation.

Yes, it still remains astonishing that it is always an ALP Government that does the dirty on workers comp, and those unions, which once upon a time were uncritical supporters of the ALP, are uncritical no longer.

2025 depa award for The Worst HR in Local Government

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Published: Tuesday, 16 December 2025 15:51

How’s HR been this year?

Possibly not that bad, a bit patchy and inconsistent. We’ve had some venal and punitive action against members, filed five disputes, and participated vigorously in two disputes filed by the USU.

Annually we recognise the City of Ryde, still a relatively unpleasant place to work, still the same people making it unpleasant, but also making it unpleasant for HR, all of whom left the organisation and the Council contracted the roles out to an external HR contractor. What next?

Shoalhaven is a regular nominee who, despite losing a dispute to us in 2014 over the appropriate grading of members with supervisory/managerial responsibilities, (its band 3 level 3, or 3/3), we accidentally discovered they were still employing those members on 3/2.

A member contacted us concerned about steps to downgrade their position and remove skills allowances (it looked like rorting job evaluation) but their PD showed that the position was 3/2, classically under-graded and inconsistent with the principle that the Commission made the Council acknowledge 11 years earlier.

We settled early in the year on the five employees we’d been pursuing a claim for, and the Council agreed more than 10 months ago to have their job evaluation and salary system reviewed by Mastertek - in particular looking at the correct grading for those positions across the Council (where there are probably 25 or 30 people affected) and reviewing why, when Mastertek has two grades in the salary system for 3/3 everywhere else, there was only one at Shoalhaven. HR is the answer.

In an update last week, HR has identified a multistep process, requiring approval by the Executive, and with a resolution expected early next year. We can expect restoring the two grades in the salary system, and remedying underpayments - more than a year since we asked for the review. That could be our first dispute of 2026.

Or Lismore, where the unions attended a presentation by the GM who said the Council was in the “pre-consultation” phase. He meant the “pre-proposal” stage, as described in the Award, where ideas were being tossed up, feedback sought, and they would then put together a proposal for the “proposal” stage. But in what had to be the shortest pre-consultation stage in history, while we were being told what they were contemplating, payroll and HR people were beavering away preparing termination letters, complete with calculations and entitlements no less, for employees who would be made redundant after they introduced a structure they had in mind all along!

When we sent an update email to members it turned out we had four members who had already accepted Voluntary Redundancies, and one who had looked at the sinking ship and gone elsewhere.

To be clear, unlike Lismore management, the Director was clearing the deck for the mysterious structure they had already determined to implement. The process was a sham.

The USU filed a dispute, the other unions were there, the Council collapsed, and in proceedings in the IRC they agreed to start again.

You can pause here, and choose a number of words from our list below, that might be appropriate descriptors:

You need never be lost for words after an experience with HR again!

But let’s get onto our disputes. All but one our nominations. In chronological order:

Richmond Valley term contract breaches the Award

Term contracts can only exist under the Award these days in specific circumstances - fixed funding or a job of fixed duration, for example. So, when a member, in their first job in local government, despairing because no one was telling him anything as his two-year term contract came closer to the termination date, asked us about their term contract, it looked like the contract was a breach of the Award.

In the letter of offer the Council claimed it was a term contract under clause 36 (i)(b) because it was “externally funded”. And it was really a contract under 36 (i)(a) but ignored our requests to identify the external funder until they decided it was an administrative mistake by HR and it was really a contract under 36(i)(a) because it was “for the life of a specific task or project”. That was equally wrong, they couldn’t justify that either.

The GM at Richmond Valley, Vaughan McDonald, likes to use words, a bit like Humpty Dumpty, to mean whatever he wants them to mean.

In 2018 the Council was awarded depa’s prestigious HR award, for wage theft. They had created a job titled “scholar”, young people doing courses who were really trainees under the Award. A trainee planner member wondered why her rate as a “scholar” was significantly below the Award rate for trainees - $241.70 a week to be exact, in the first year.

It would have been so easy for the GM to blame his predecessor, who introduced the scheme, but he chose to contest it, claiming we’d be destroying a useful employment arrangement. The GM eventually conceded they were trainees, paid our member around $30,000 in back money and a total of around $160,000 (including adjustments to superannuation) for similarly treated “scholars”.  

So, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see the Council defending a term contract that didn’t satisfy the tests in the Award - making up arguments that were patently untrue about our young OSSM and Trade Waste Officer - the job did not comply with the requirements of the Award.

We filed a dispute on 13 August, and five minutes before it was to commence in the IRC, the Council conceded, agreeing they would offer “a continuation in the role”. This was an acknowledgement he was always a permanent employee.

The GM was not happy he’d taken advice from LGNSW and concedes with, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt and expected he would treat the young employee fairly and not disadvantage him. What could possibly go wrong?

Waverley taunts us all with "perceived disadvantage"

The Council had been threatening a new salary and job evaluation system for what seemed like decades and eventually produced it, but at the same time thought it made sense to transfer annual skills progression and performance steps away from the employee’s anniversary date, and move to a performance and progression review season later in the year. This is something an unknown number of councils have done over the years, without any concern being expressed to depa.

Waverley members were blessed with a highly numerate member who calculated that as his birthday was at the very beginning of the year, his review date and both skills and performance reward would be delayed by nine months or so. He calculated the financial loss, much to the dismay of some innumerate expert responsible for the proposal. We forwarded the calculations to this person, who didn’t take this seriously, and despite having been provided with evidence, described the demonstrable disadvantage as “perceived disadvantage.” We filed our second dispute for the year on 14 July.

The GM decided to protect the guilty and wouldn’t explain why that stupid expression was used, but the Commissioner allocated our dispute immediately picked up on the disadvantage and that it would continue every year the employee had progression in the salary system - a bit more numerate than those who wanted to contest this.

In a negotiated settlement the Council agreed to retain the anniversary date for progression from the annual review (which in turn if there were progression available in the salary system, would be automatic unless there was significant performance or behavioural problems) and a separate process for performance reward would operate later in the year.

In doing so, the Council created a virtually automatic increase and the potential for another one based on performance later in the year, in what could be the best salary system ever.

Bega Right to Disconnect argument gets worse

A relatively inexperienced director determined that the on-call roster for EHOs to be available to attend significant environmental incidents, costing $12,000 a year, would be terminated to save the money. This was contested by the manager and everyone else associated with ensuring instant action for the management of significant environmental accidents. Floods can overwhelm sewerage systems, and oyster farms would be seriously at risk.

The Council should be ensuring the quality of those fabulous South Coast oysters, and the most reliable way of doing so is to have an on-call roster. The Director’s idea was that instead of a roster, someone would phone EHOs out of hours, when they are entitled to not answer the phone, to attend the emergency. What a dumb plan.

This required a trip to Bega, and in a meeting with the Director and the GM, the GM said the argument wasn’t about the right to disconnect, there weren’t suitably trained people to be part of a roster. Good call, Anthony. We responded by asking the senior EHO, who was in the meeting, how long it would take to train people to fill the roster if she could drop everything. She said two days and we had happily delivered a solution to the GM and Director that there could be sufficient people trying to do the job on a roster in two weeks!

It ended up being three weeks and we delivered an instant response to the GM’s concerns. You’re welcome, Anthony. Not everyone was happy.

Inadvertently this had created some acrimony in restoring a roster the Director wanted removed and poisoned the relationship between the Director and the manager. This led to the filing of a dispute on 7 November, we had a member on workers compensation and a running sore trying to get that member back to work, in a series of compulsory conferences in the IRC that are continuing.

WorkCover is investigating and using the expression “bullying”, as is our member’s Doctor. The Council has now determined that if there are allegations of bullying, they wants to know what they are, so there is now a parallel investigation being conducted. This will continue into 2026.

Richmond Valley again!

Clearly there are some people to whom you should never give the benefit of the doubt. There was a lesson to be learned after 2018 when our member who raised the issue about being a “scholar” continued until she had received her degree and wanted salary recognition, not just as a professional, but also acknowledging the value acquired as a trainee in the local area. The GM refused her request, she had a better option and resigned in what was an undeniably significant loss of talent.

Notwithstanding the past, we discontinued the dispute, hoping our young member would be treated reasonably and fairly. They did, at least, take advice on the last occasion to settle the dispute, so we put our trust in the GM.

The first thing the Council needed to do after the settlement of the first dispute was to formalise “continuation in the role” - recognition that the term contract was a breach of the Award and the employee was a permanent employee. The PD clearly identified the OSMS and Trade Waste functions, but our member had been trained to do food inspections (at a cost including airfares to Sydney, two nights’ accommodation and expenses), started training to do Protection of the Environment inspections, and he was doing water testing in public pools. Those parts of the “role” needed to continue, otherwise it wasn’t genuine “continuation in the role”.

This took longer than it should have. A new letter of offer was prepared to formalise this recognition, but the letter came with KPIs, signed by the GM no less, and there was no confirmation the additional EHO activities our member had performed would continue. While we had these reservations, the member was approached and told the contract MUST be signed that day, he did so, but noted it was under duress.

What a distressing way to treat a relatively new employee in local government. We’d had enough, it was unreasonable and unfair treatment, and there were concerns about whether his annual performance review would be impartial and would allow progression.

We filed a second dispute on 13 August, adjourned those proceedings to allow the Council’s performance review process to proceed, which was rorted to deny him progression. He had six targets and had met expectations on all of them. On one of them, a KPI of 250 OSSM inspections in the year, our member almost tripled the number of inspections required and should have received at least one “exceed expectations”.

The Council was represented by LGNSW and, after taking their advice, they accepted that the recommendation that he not progress was inappropriate and he was moved to step 2.

This is an unpleasant dispute, and in an endeavour to resolve the number of issues that are related to this, the Commission insisted that we meet in Casino to resolve all the problems on 15 December.

The Commissioner could neither have the Council accept those they had done anything wrong, nor have depa accept that we should stop publicising behaviour we think inappropriate. We have not published anything about Richmond Valley that is incorrect, going back to 2018 even, and we now have a better appreciation of the Council’s sensitivity. And members have a right to know the councils where we think our members are being treated unfairly. We've been doing that for more than a decade.

The best that could be agreed, with the Commissioner’s strong support, was that we weren't going to be able to agree on the past, so we should draw a line in the sand and start fresh. So, we are starting fresh. If the Council does what the Council has committed to, this will be the last time you read critical comments by us about they way they treat staff. Our rights are reserved.

There was general consensus on continuing training to enhance our member's skills, with plans to be put in place, with a bit of luck, this year.

And the winner is:

Minns Government smashed on Workers Comp

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Published: Monday, 17 November 2025 13:06

Prior to the NSW election in March 2023, 19 ALP Parliamentary hopefuls signed a pledge that they would support initiatives to protect workers compensation for workers with psychosocial injuries. Those 19 all became Ministers. On 27 May 2015, Labor introduced a bill for amendments to the Workers Compensation Act that would do precisely the opposite of what they had pledged. The 19 included Minns who became Premier and Daniel Mookhey who became the Treasurer. Shameful, duplicitous, who will ever trust them again?

While the bill was introduced into the Legislative Assembly by Sophie Cotsis MP, the Minister for Industrial Relations, it was introduced into the Legislative Council by Daniel Mookhey, a former official of Unions NSW, and the real architect of the initiatives to remove protection from injured workers.

Unions NSW, a representative body of all New South Wales unions launched a campaign in opposition. Ruing Mookhey's treachery, the campaign lobbied vigorously to oppose the legislative assault, attracting support from the Coalition, the Greens, and other crossbenchers.

The bill was moved into an Upper House Committee for review, and there it remained. The Government introduced a further bill that was also referred to the Committee, which called injured workers as witnesses, all of whom attested to the damage that would be done to workers by risks of increasing the 15% Whole Person Injury (WPI) to 30%. Workers who are 30% affected need permanent care at home, or life in an institution.

There was the usual complaining from business, where, for a change, Labor was the party of business, and the Coalition supported protections for workers. What a relief this is the last week of the Parliamentary term this year.

Unions NSW’s campaign to attract and retain the support of Upper House independents couldn’t restrain those independents from trying to settle in other ways – there were alliances being formed and changing everywhere. But in the end, one brave politician, MP Taylor Martin MLC, someone who up until that moment was not a household name, and who, almost up until the bitter end, had been pressing amendments trying to break the deadlock, told Parliament on Thursday night, “I will not be the patsy for this government”.

In his speech he said that he had “not heard a single convincing argument today or another time” that justified slashing medical payments for psychologically injured workers. He said, “if taking away workers’ protections and compensation matters so much to the Minns Government’s budget, then one of its members in the lower house who signed the bloody pledge can move to rip off those workers and set the bar so high that they will no longer have any cover… I do not know how members supporting that can sleep at night.

If the Labor government really needs to take away workers compensation to plug the holes in its budget, it should take that to an election and seek that mandate from the public. According to its pledge, the only mandate that the Minns government has on this issue is to support workers unable to return to work”.

We have a new workers’ hero!

By Lachlan Hyde - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Shadow Treasurer Damien Tudehope MP described it as “a victory for seriously injured workers”, and it was the amendment moved by the Shadow Treasurer which was eventually successful.

When the amendment to WPI was put there was a call for a division, but Labor MPs refused because their names would have to be recorded! It’s hard to rewrite history when it’s recorded in Hansard! The Shadow Treasurer said “they knew that their vote betrayed the very front line workers they claim to stand up for. They also knew would betray the unions who fund their campaigns.”

Premier Chris Minns told the Sydney Morning Herald that “it’s over … the parliament has made a decision. We can expect premiums to go up“. There hasn’t been a peep from the Treasurer. That doesn’t mean he has accepted defeat, but after five months, the sides are solid in their views, everyone’s had enough. The sooner he declares the bill will proceed without change to the WPI percentages, the better.

Unions NSW Secretary Mark Morey called on the government “to put away the sledgehammer and rediscover compassion and dignity for traumatised and vulnerable workers.”

A brilliant and successful campaign from Mark and the team at Unions NSW makes us proud to be an affiliate.

It’s a truism that it’s never over until it’s over. While it's looking likely that it will be waived through and the government will live with the pain and embarrassment, never underestimate the attraction of the pork barrel. There must be plenty of marginal electorates that need another sports complex…

Sick of councils being blamed for the housing shortage?

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Published: Monday, 17 November 2025 13:06

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The debate about the housing shortage has been driven by developers demanding a deregulated approach, looking to get shoddy flats up as quickly as possible while worrying about the quality later. What else could be the result of latest steps of the NSW Government?

Last month depaNews revealed some bad news about industrial disputes at Waverley, Richmond Valley, and Tamworth but some good news that the Committee of Management had been working on a position paper for depa about where we stood on the housing shortage and planning in NSW. The Committee’s document is suitably professional and put together by highly experienced and qualified depa members. I wrote the next four paragraphs and I’m none of those things.

Governments only make bad decisions about planning. Politics and vested interests get in the way of decisions that should be focused on quality planning, building liveable and high amenity housing for towns and cities. Fundamental principles like infrastructure before building housing, construction from the perspective of owners and renters with an interest in quality-of-life, green spaces, amenity and liveability, come second.

The NSW Government doesn’t understand planning – the Planning Act in 1998 removed building regulation from councils and forever lost the concept of a BA handled locally, assisting applicants across the counter and providing local solutions.

At the same time, they introduced private certification – ignoring or somehow unaware of the conflict of interest inherent in developers and builders paying for their own certifiers, then failing to regulate the system when introduced, layers of subsequent regulation have haphazardly tried to remove the shonkies, the get-rich-quick, and the corrupt.

Finally, in 2010, and opposed by everyone in local government, they introduced the accreditation of council staff, who were already better regulated and managed as employees, and had no pecuniary interests as regulators, and were able to demonstrate the highly uncorrupted nature of the process. Unlike private certification.

Governments never learn.

Here is the Committee’s depa Position on the Housing Crisis and Local Government Planning in NSW.

You didn’t cringe as much as we did

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Published: Thursday, 23 October 2025 14:00

On Monday, the Herald reported an exclusive interview with NSW Premier Chris Minns, with the headline “Minns puts councils on notice over NSW housing crisis”. Yes, in the Government’s frenzy to get houses built and social housing as part of that, it’s all councils’ fault! No mention of the failures of a succession of governments to provide schooling and other infrastructure which should precede the building of houses.

About councils he said, “and they can be a pain, yeah, they can. But we’ve been rolling over the top of them for the last two years, and now we are about to formalise it with the bill… The secret here, though, is that local government is just an act of the state parliament.” Seriously?

This coincides with the government’s bill to make changes to the 50-year-old Planning Act, supported by the Coalition, designed to make it quicker and easier to deliver new homes.

The changes, universally condemned by the industry, will enshrine in law a three-person Housing Delivery Authority, to set significant developments on a fast track and bypass local councils. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s been a long time since a government threatened councils by reminding them that local government exists through legislation of the State. Minns underestimated the response.

On Tuesday, the Herald reported, “The Premier backtracked yesterday, admitting he “cringed a bit” when reading his comments… So (I) definitely said those words, but if I had my time again, I would have said it in a different way - because we want to work with Councils”.

Governments don’t understand planning and have a history of bad decisions - starting with amendments to the Planning Act in 1998 removing building regulation from councils and lost forever the concept of a BA which was invariably handled locally, assisting applicants across the counter, and providing local solutions and introducing private certification; and in 2010 extending to the accreditation of council staff, who were already better regulated and managed as employees. Governments never learn.

Our Committee of Management is putting together a paper on planning, with some recommendations, and that link will be in next month’s issue of depaNews.

2026 State Award negotiations underway

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Published: Thursday, 23 October 2025 14:00

The Local Government State Award was initially made in October 1991 to apply from 1992. It revolutionised employment practices in local government and established a flexible and cooperative framework for the workplace. The State Award was originally made by the consent of the parties (LGNSW, USU, depa and LGEA) and has been varied by agreement ever since. There is a common view between the employer and employee organisations to create and protect rewarding work, flexible working arrangements, and improved productivity.

The parties built this important and historic document recognising our common interests, Socratic, rather than sledging, and we’re doing it again.

The meetings are scheduled to roll through into 2026 for a new three-year Award to be made to operate from the first pay period after 1 July 2026.

The employers and the unions have submitted logs of claims, and here is ours.