The Government clarifies the sale of Poles and Wires

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Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2015 00:00

Deputy Premier Troy Grant this morning clarified that the sale of poles and wires did not mean all Australian citizens with Polish blood will be sold into slavery. “Gee whiz, after the resounding election mandate from NSW voters, it’s hard to say no to getting rid of all those unpronounceable names. They might be too hard for us simple country folk and many immigrants refuse to Anglicise their name as well, but slavery is out. Until we get Work Choices back, of course.”

“Even though it’s a lifestyle choice to insist on keeping unpronounceable and unspellable names and out here in the bush we have better things to do, it’s still not on”, the Deputy Premier added.

“Kosciuszko is too hard. Really Big Mountain is better and we shouldn’t have to worry about the funny little thing that should go over the first s either.”

The Government’s plans to sell Wires have been enthusiastically embraced by some who thought it meant the Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service. “While we agree it should be funded by tree huggers and those more interested in wildlife than proper useful animals like cattle”, the Deputy Premier said, “we don’t own it, so we can’t sell it.”

“Most of you city people have never seen the damage a kangaroo can do to a fence when you’re chasing it in the ute,” so maybe something for our third term.”

John Howard sees silver lining after Malcolm Fraser’s death

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Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2015 00:00

The death of Malcolm Fraser and the memorial service in Melbourne last week allowed Australians to celebrate an ex-Prime Minister who became more popular and likeable over the decades. As an old-fashioned Liberal, economically dry but socially progressive, Fraser had encouraged the acceptance and settlement of Vietnamese refugees during his period of Prime Minister and government.

While Fraser subsequently and compellingly argued he was no more likeable, he was surrounded by people who became more difficult to like as his political party became increasingly conservative. “It was all relative really”, he observed as he blasted his former political party for its hostility to refugees and multiculturalism.

Former Prime Minister John Howard, who remains precisely the sort of person he was when he was thrown out by his own electorate at the same time as his government was ejected, has embraced the possibility that he can now become the only living Liberal ex-Prime Minister the people grow to like.

“Certainly, I’m no more likeable than I was. I fought multiculturalism, compulsory superannuation, industry superannuation funds, I liked the idea of claiming babies have been thrown into the water by refugees trying to get into Australia, I followed the US and Britain into Iraq based on weapons of mass destruction that never existed and I never apologised for anything and I would never apologise to our own stolen generations.”

“But now, my time has come.”

Polling conducted by Fairfax Media and published this morning found 78% thought this unlikely. A further 17% thought this very unlikely.

“New South Wales is open for business” Baird Liberal/Coalition Government commits to dramatic initiatives

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Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2015 00:00

NSW announces privatisation of Building Professionals Board

Premier Mike Baird today announced that the Government would adopt recommendations from the review of the BPB by the respected ex Treasury official and finance professional Michael Lambert.

Mr Lambert’s long career included a review for the Government of the possibilities of selling parts of the electricity industry. His report recommended the sale of the poles and wires infrastructure, now a firm but misunderstood commitment of the returned NSW Government.

The Premier said, “while our commitment to sell parts of the electricity industry superstructure is really selling a resource that will decline in value over the years, the BPB would be an absolute goldmine for private speculators. It has a solid income stream from local government and that will increase exponentially.”

“It was a brilliant decision of the Labor Government to expand accreditation beyond private certifiers. Yes, we know that the Board was hopeless in managing the way private certifiers went about their business looking after the interests of those who paid them a fee, but who would have thought it would be any different?  But it was a masterstroke to accredit local government employees. In the three years they have been accredited they have never been investigated, prosecuted nor disciplined by the Board. This is a perfect arrangement.”

“A complete waste of time if it were a role for the public sector, because it would be unnecessary regulation and red tape and damned by IPART, but it’s up there with owning a casino if you want guaranteed income. The mugs just keep paying”, he said.

“This is an ideal income stream - the money flows in from local government and the Board doesn’t need to do anything other than not lose accreditation records.”

The Premier announced that he believed Chinese interests, UBS and other investment banks and the Development and Environmental Professionals’ Association would be interested buyers.

depa was smart enough to see through the folly of private certifiers and that the Government’s plans to accredit local government employees was based on lies and designed to be nothing more than an income stream guaranteed into the future.

Government bans the words “bad for the budget”

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Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2015 00:00

NSW voters obviously like Mike Baird. He seems a pleasant bloke (although we do wonder about some of his friends) and he has managed to distance himself from the ten Liberal/National politicians forced to resign or moved to the backbench over the last couple of years. Yes 10, you can count them on his fingers.

Barry O’Farrell may have been an affable kind of bloke too but we don’t really know. We do know that he could bring a decent bottle of wine if you invited him for dinner - as long as he remembered that he had it at home to bring in the first place.

The only glitch in the Liberal/National re-election campaign was the revelation that someone in the Government had asked UBS to remove the words ”bad for the budget” from their review of the Government’s electricity privatisation plans, compromising their advice and misleading the public. Currently being investigated by the corporate regulator ASIC and others, no one really knows yet who made the call to the investment bank to remove the words that would have been politically damaging prior to the election.

Today Premier Mike Baird announced that this sort of examination of what should never have been exposed wouldn’t happen again. “We will make it an offence to use the words “bad for the budget”, in any way”, the Premier said.

“Many will argue that this is bad for freedom of expression, bad for democracy but it won’t be bad for the Government. The sooner we forget about those unacceptable words the better.”

Forewarned that this was a risk, media organisations and civil libertarians had lobbied the government about this bad move but were unable to budget.

Election Special

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Published: Wednesday, 25 March 2015 11:40

There are potentially many, many issues to determine how people will vote in NSW elections on Saturday. For some voters, one issue will be enough and for others it will be a more comprehensive examination of policies. For some, of course, it will be brand loyalty.

depa is not affiliated with any political party and, as you’ve seen over the years, we are equally happy to be critical of the role of Government whether that be Coalition or Labor.

As a registered industrial organisation under the Industrial Relations Act (that’s how both unions and employer organisations are registered) we obviously have more of an interest in those things that affect our members.

We didn’t like it when the Carr Labor Government started stripping away workers’ compensation entitlements and we didn’t like it either when the O’Farrell Coalition Government made things even worse.

For the election we have asked four questions of both the Government and the Opposition. In asking the questions we provided a guarantee that the responses would be published unedited.

We have done this before and find that it’s usually easier to get a policy response from an Opposition and harder to get one from the Government - especially if the questions we’re asking are hard to answer, make them uncomfortable or press them for explicit assurances they would rather be quiet about.

Here are our four questions below. Labor also provided a PDF of their comprehensive local government policies. This is a link if you would like to explore it.

Here are two links to articles that, by coincidence, were published today in the Sydney Morning Herald.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/first-the-carrot-then-the-stick-state-policy-on-council-amalgamations-examined-20150324-13z11t.html

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015-reducing-nsws-152-councils-to-38-would-cost-445-million-modelling-shows-20150324-1m6l6s.html

1. The NSW Government’s attitude to local government

Preface

The Department of Local Government keeps getting smaller, suffering a variety of name changes and a reduction in its seniority in the Government/Cabinet and its role in the industry.

Question 1

Will the Government take steps to ensure local government as a portfolio receives a higher profile in the Government?

Coalition Government response

Under the Baird Government, the local government sector is finally receiving the attention it deserves.

For example, we have provided more than $1.5 billion in grants to help country and city councils upgrade and maintain their roads, bridges and culverts. This is the highest level of funding for local and regional roads in the state’s history, dwarfing Labor allocations in its last four financial years in government (i.e. 2007-08 to 2010-11) by more than 40 per cent.

Our Fit for the Future package is the most significant investment the State has ever made in the local government sector, and ensures that local government firmly remains a key priority for a re-elected Baird Government.

ALP response

Yes. We will form a Premier’s Council for Local Government to bring together all relevant stakeholders and develop new partnerships between the NSW Government and the local government sector.

2. Amalgamation of councils - to compulsorily amalgamate or not to compulsorily amalgamate, that is the question

Preface

Everyone is aware of the recommendations of the Independent Review Panel and what has been a traditional and historic view of both sides of politics that amalgamations should be voluntary. The Independent Review Panel, amongst other things, proposes compulsory amalgamations and the Fit for the Future strategy appears to encourage that if Councils do not meet certain criteria, which have been challenged by both councils and academics.

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And now back to the 19th century when mothers knew their place

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Published: Tuesday, 24 February 2015 14:37

Getting hot under the collar is the wrong response

We’re not going to identify the Council at this stage, nor name the Director pictured above, because we are hoping for the best and we have a member returning to work after parental leave in a hostile environment anyway. But how about this...

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From one GM with poor HR to another...

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Published: Tuesday, 24 February 2015 14:37

Our second dispute with Bankstown City Council (whoops, now the secrets out, it’ll be another contempt allegation against us) about the inadequacy of their investigations policy and processes came before the Industrial Relations Commission on 10 February.  Initially filed out of frustration because GM Matthew Stewart kept ignoring our requests to renegotiate their procedures, our fundamental problem is that Bankstown doesn’t accept that employees should be able to see and understand any findings that are made against them.
 
Investigations are conducted by external investigators who produce a report with findings and explanations but where the employee who may be adversely affected, whether they are found guilty or not guilty of the allegations, is not allowed to see it.

This is worse if the employee is found guilty, because they don’t get to examine the evidence or the reasoning but it is a problem too for employees found not guilty because the Council’s management/HR people are able to verbal the employee, develop their own conclusions based on their understanding or misunderstanding of the report to all say whatever they like because no one can check. The way Bankstown handles it means that being found innocent may not be enough.

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Tamworth and GM Paul Bennett humiliated in IRC

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Published: Tuesday, 24 February 2015 14:36

GM Paul Bennett, “have I got something on my face?”

Yes Paul, you do.

When Tamworth GM Paul Bennett decided not to contest the position of President of the LGMA for a second term, we thought we had seen the last of his clumsy forays into HR and industrial relations.
 
As President of LGMA (alright then, let’s call it by its proper name when Paul was in charge, the Local Government Poseurs Association) he crashed into the negotiations for the 2014 State Award, bagging the agreed settlement to both LGNSW, which had agreed to it, the Minister for Local Government, who was irrelevant to it, and offending both the employers’ organisation, the unions and the President of the IRC who had conciliated to finalise outstanding or unresolved issues and then made the Award by the consent of the parties.

It wasn’t just the content of the correspondence that offended either. LGNSW President Keith Rhodes was addressed as Keth, a woman’s name in Denmark, and we’re not sure what to make of that. At least he didn’t conclude his letter telling Keth to get back to ironing her husband’s shirts. On the LGPA’s website, his letter to the Minister for Local Government was available by clicking on “Letter to Minister Tool”  – it’s Toole, Paul, a name which, without the final “e”, could be intended to offend. Still, if LGPA wanted to call the Minister a tool, why not. It wouldn’t be our first policy difference with them, but we think he’s a terrific bloke.
 
And in case you need a reminder, one of the issues the LGM/PA in the Bennett era was most upset about was the clause going into the Award that chronically ill employees could, with the agreement of their Council, take their sick leave at half pay. It was Paul’s approach to employing people which, for the first time, earned LGMA a nomination in our worst HR Awards last year.

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NSW election on Saturday 28 March

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Published: Tuesday, 24 February 2015 13:31

On 28 March everyone gets to vote for the least worst option.
 
Pardon our cynicism, but Labor has had a tainted past, a dozen or so Liberal/Nationals were demoted as Ministers, or resigned  from Parliament after seeing what some Labour politicians had done and, driven by competition, couldn’t let Labour get away with something so entrepreneurial when they always believed that they could do that sort of thing so much better.
 
depa will be writing to both sides with a number of critical questions about the issues that will affect you in your working life in local government. Are they really Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or Tweedledum and Tweedledummer? We’ll write to the Greens too, because they often look like a more active opposition in NSW.

And we’ll publish their answers, unedited, next month.

Who wouldn’t like to hit a ball into this beautiful lake?

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Published: Tuesday, 24 February 2015 13:29

Last chance. We have 12 teams already signed up for the Union Picnic Day Golf Day at Blackheath on Friday 13 March, but if you get your fingers out, we could fit in another couple.

Let Margaret know on by Friday 6 March or miss out.