Office of Local Government announces review of how to deal with councillor misconduct

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Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 11:00

The Minister for Local Government announced months ago that Mr Gary Kellar PSM had been appointed to carry out a review following his membership of an expert panel reviewing local government misconduct framework in Queensland in 2017. He was also the GM of Logan City Council for 26 years, so he would have seen his share of councillors behaving badly.

In correspondence to depa and others on 26 November, the Office of Local Government provided the Terms of Reference and a Consultation paper for the review which has nominated a deadline for submissions of 28 March 2022. That’s four months’ notice, and while that’s plenty of time to get a good submission together, it’s also enough time to forget about it.

This is a big deal for us. This year we went through a farce with OLG when we challenged factual errors in a report by the then CEO Tim Hurst. Mr Hurst had found in a code of conduct investigation into a complaint against a Wagga Wagga City Councillor Paul Funnell, that while there should be a suspension and a penalty, there had been no previous form, nor any other complaints waiting investigation - two observations that were demonstrably untrue. We demonstrated it but OLG backed Hurst. And they continue to do so. Cover up, did you say?

We discovered OLG was established in such a way that when they conduct their investigations they are beyond challenge, information is inaccessible under GIPA and even demonstrably untrue findings can only be reviewed if OLG agrees to. And because OLG had refused to do so, we went to NCAT to obtain documents and that decision remains reserved.

We can’t wait to make a submission to the enquiry but there will be lots more of your out there who have been dissatisfied with the way OLG has managed complaints and this is your opportunity.

One of our concerns is that the penalty regime against councillors should, like penalties imposed in the ARL, carry on to the next term, or next season if it were the ARL. Former Councillor Funnell resigned, citing ill-health, a few months ago and everyone was suspicious he was trying to dodge further findings in one or more of the complaints that were in the pipeline when Hurst made his flawed decision.

We know that there were findings about to be made against him that would have been more significant. In one of his daily Facebook rants he attacked OLG for threatening him with “three-months’ suspension” for posting something on the local rag’s website - action which drew multiple complaints, including from us.

Funnell is standing again in the election next weekend, and because of restrictions upon OLG, some of which are clearly self-imposed, those outstanding penalties are unlikely to be imposed.

Bruce Dunlop is a new member of our Committee of Management

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Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 11:00

Bruce Dunlop is our delegate at Camden City Council, has been for years and almost two years ago expressed an interest in standing for the election for the Committee in 2020. At the time we had enough nominations with the NSW Electoral Office for all positions up for election, and rather than force an election by nominating, with the significant costs associated with that, he decided not to stand.

That meant Bruce was on the bench, and when Renah Givney, a Planner from Coffs Harbour resigned from both Coffs and depa as Vice President because she was moving to a far more lucrative and rewarding position in the Department of Planning (take that Coffs, clearly it’s time to review the competitiveness of your salaries and conditions) here was an opportunity for Bruce to run on, late in the game to provide a high impact performance boost.

The Committee used its powers under the Rules to appoint members to casual vacancies and resolved in October to appoint current Member of the Committee, Vince Galetto from Ryde Council, to the vacant position of Vice President and Bruce to the vacated position of Committee Member.

Welcome, Bruce. Bruce attended the November meeting and will attend the February meeting and participate in the regular exchanges between the Secretary and members of the Committee and any electronic votes, prior to the election in 2022.

No increase in membership fees in 2022

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Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 11:00

Lots of good news in this issue! The Committee of Management meeting on 11 November resolved that union fees will remain at the comparatively and ridiculously low rates of $520 for members in full-time work, $260 for part-time members and (insert figure) for trainees.

December is the last month of the year, and that can only mean one thing

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Published: Monday, 29 November 2021 11:00

Maybe it has something to do with living through a pandemic, focusing on trying to manage appropriate distancing amongst staff, rotating employees through working from home and from the office, then everyone working from home and now developing policies to require everyone to be vaccinated, but it hasn’t been a bad year.

Looking back over the last decade and a bit, we’ve seen Bankstown win in 2010, Greater Taree in 2011, Lismore in 2012, Fairfield in 2013, Shoalhaven int 2014 and 2015, Campbelltown in 2016, Tweed Shire in 2017, Richmond Valley in 2018, Narrabri in 2019 and Sutherland last year.

One Council has had forty employees resign since 2019, directors and managers included, and have a real problem with workplace culture, claims of bullying and workers compensation, so they seem keen to get another award. Another has had nine industrial disputes filed against them in the last twelve months (including one by us) when they’d be unlucky to have one or two a year, and all while the person in charge of HR was off on parental leave, and they had a temp filling in!

 Who knows who else has been out there going hard for this prestigious acknowledgement?

There is still time to get a nomination in as well. You can send you a nomination to

New South Wales elects new Pope

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Published: Tuesday, 05 October 2021 15:07

The NSW Liberal Party this morning conducted a ballot to choose between two highly religious white men to replace Gladys Berejiklian following her resignation on Friday 1 October. Ms Berejiklian resigned in anticipation of an investigation by the ICAC and isn’t the first person to complain that an ICAC investigation into their behaviour was poorly timed.

In a contest that takes us back to the sixteenth century, there were two candidates to become Premier, the current Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet and Planning Minister, Rob Stokes, with Perrottet defeating Stokes 39 votes to 5. Dominic has more children than poor Rob had votes.

Dominic Perrottet is a conservative, white male Roman Catholic, and is seen as a religious extremist opposed to progressive agendas, who welcomed the election of Donald Trump as “a victory for people who have been taken for granted by the elites in the political establishment for too long”, defended those who question “man-made climate change”, and as an opponent to gender equality.

A little like Gladys, as Treasurer he was able to survive the fiasco of the government’s Workers Compensation Insurer (“I (don’t) Care), and establish the Transport Asset Holding Entity, TAHE, described by former NSW Auditor-General Tony Harris as “a vehicle designed to own Sydney’s rail assets and to hide government rail transport expenses“.

Mr Perrottet has six children, which is a lot by any measure, and if you go to the Liberal Party NSW site for a profile on the Member for Epping, you find that “Dominic is married to Helen and they are the proud parents at Charlotte, Amelia and Annabelle". That must be a bit of a bummer for the other three kids.

His opponent, former Minister for Planning and Open Spaces, Rob Stokes, is a conservative white male Anglican, with, amongst other things, a Degree in Theology, and is also seen as a religious extremist opposed to progressive agendas. Both voted against decriminalising abortion and will oppose a vote for assisted dying in a Bill being brought before the NSW Parliament by Independent member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich. John Barilaro, the resigning leader of the National Party, experienced the misery of an agonising inevitable death for a loved one, and realised the importance of assisted dying for those who choose it, neither of the candidates are prepared to provide that option, choosing the miserable, lingering agony of death. Lovely.

Hard to distinguish between the two candidates, in the sixteenth century cheeky Catholics took the Pope on and started the Reformation, and while there was a time back in the 1950s and 1960s when careers in the New South Wales Public Sector were affected by whether you were a Catholic or Protestant (or more accurately, a Catholic or Protestant bloke) those days are now well behind us - with the clear expectation that when this year’s Census results are released, we will see fewer than half Australians ticking Christianity. Ours is a changing society, but there was no evidence of that in the Liberal Party meeting this morning - more a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Meanwhile, 600 years later...

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Published: Tuesday, 05 October 2021 15:07

Last week in the US, President Joe Biden mourned “the painful milestone” of 700,000 American deaths from COVID-19 - with the worst statistic being that the last 100,000 deaths occurred when the vaccines, which, described by the SMH on 5 October as “overwhelmingly prevent deaths, hospitalisations and serious illness”, were available to any American over the age of 12.

In the National Mall in Washington, 700,000 white flags commemorated those deaths.

The Herald reports, “The Milestone is deeply frustrating to doctors, public health officials and the American public, who watched a pandemic that had been easing earlier in the summer take a dark turn. Tens of millions of Americans have refused to get vaccinated, allowing the highly contagious delta variant to tear through the country and send the death toll from 600,000 to 700,000 in 3 ½ months.” And it shows no sign of stopping.

In lessons for us, if we needed more evidence, 70% of the deaths were in unvaccinated people, “and of those vaccinated people who died with breakthrough infections, most caught the virus from an unvaccinated person.”

Councils moving towards mandatory vaccination

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Published: Tuesday, 05 October 2021 15:07

The last issue of depaNews should not have been confronting or surprising. Everyone was sick of lockdown and we’ve all had five more weeks of it – now over 100 days in Sydney and surrounds. Infection numbers are slowly coming down, we’re all getting desensitised and it’s a positive sign that in NSW Health figures on 5 October, there were “only” seven people who died and we’re down to 608 cases.

NSW Health also announced that 88.5% of the state’s eligible population 16 and over have had a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 67.5% are fully vaccinated - tantalisingly close to the 70% fully vaccinated to allow the relaxation of restrictions.

We had a few members unhappy with the message, wanting to reserve their rights to remain unvaccinated and have depa advocate for them when the inevitable mandatory vaccination restrictions are imposed at work. Overwhelmingly the response was supportive. Members from all over the state with one responding, “thank you for your support of mandatory vaccination and for the no fuss no-frills clarity”. “No fuss no-frills clarity”, that should be on the depaNews masthead.

Even an unprecedented thank you and congratulations from one GM who, to be kind, has shared a mutual psychopathic antagonism with us for decades. Odd bedfellows, indeed.

There was lively debate, someone who should have known better defended their position by saying “I note the NSW Health Orders don’t currently allow local governments to require the whole of our workforce to be vaccinated” (which was wrong), some flimsy defence of the right to remain unvaccinated, “I know people with side effects from jabs, I am yet to meet someone whose (sic) had Covid”, some confusion about what our role was, emphasised like this “ Are you for real, you represent me, not the Council. I pay YOU the union fees. NOT the Council!” Noting the employer’s onerous obligations under the Work Health Safety Act, and what that will mean for employees, is not representing the Council, it’s recognising the reality.

And some sensible discussion as well, with one poor person complaining that already in social situations they’re being asked about their vaccination status and finding it uncomfortable - so life was going to get increasingly more difficult for that person.

Councils are well-advanced in how to deal with the inevitable return to the office. While we’re not briefed on all councils, there are substantial steps being taken with surveys of staff to test their attitude on mandatory vaccination and their anxiety about allowing unvaccinated people to mix freely with those who are vaccinated. It’s only a matter of time now before councils, based upon overwhelming support from their workforce, lock the unvaccinated out.

The NSW Supreme Court last week heard arguments from a mixed bag of opponents of mandatory vaccination and a decision is reserved. But the argument in favour of mandatory vaccination is increasingly compelling.

It’s all about the law, about safe workplaces, and last issue we provided a copy of our barrister’s legal advice to us, and here you can see his compelling and overwhelming presentation circulating in the legal profession, councils and unions, providing even more support.

depa supports mandatory vaccination

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Published: Monday, 30 August 2021 14:28

depa supports mandatory vaccination

depa supports vaccination before a return to work.

depa supports disclosure of vaccination status.

Today the Premier announced a new record of Covid Delta cases across New South Wales of 1290 - making the projections of epidemiologists that failure to contain the Delta variant could mean 1500 or more a day as people fail to comply with the rules. It’s out there, and we didn’t contain it.

There have been 20,061 locally acquired cases reported since 16 June 2021, when the first case in this outbreak was reported and today there are 840 COVID-19 cases in hospital, with 137 in intensive care and 48 being ventilated.

Too many people are dying, hospitals are at capacity, there are not enough nurses in to manage the ventilators available for those who can’t breathe without assistance, and everywhere we look, those making the decisions are just too bloody slow.

It seems a long time ago now, but first it was the Ruby Princess, where at-risk travellers were set loose by NSW Health and the Federal agencies (who are still squabbling about who was most at fault) infecting as they went. Then it was the failure to have Public Health Orders to require a limo driver driving international flight crews to the eastern suburbs from the airport to be vaccinated, or even to be wearing a mask - an irresponsible action by both the employer and the driver that has now had thousands more people subsequesntly affected.

And the NSW Government, boasting of its “gold standard” tracing regimes was overwhelmed by their own smugness and mismanaged the need to shut down Sydney earlier when it became obvious that the Delta variant was out of control. They can hardly claim they weren’t aware, the Federal Government had months earlier banned flights from India due to the risk of the Delta variant arriving on our secure little island.

Everything gets done too late. The Federal Government started it, setting a gold standard of their own for bumbling, misunderstanding, misperceiving the risk and general ignorance - a disgraceful mismanagement of vaccines, not available when promised, still not enough, and confusing and inappropriate advice by a flustered PM in a late-night news conference that put the frighteners on people over AstraZeneca. Bloody hell, there’s much higher chance of dying from sex than AstraZeneca. Or even driving to get vaccinated.

The NSW Premier has done polite, preachy, imploring and begging, but only now is coming to grips with the urgency of appropriate mandatory vaccination. First, health and aged care workers, then teachers and school staff, Qantas called it early with lead-time sufficient to allow their staff to be vaccinated and providing bonuses to passengers who are vaccinated as well. Bunnings advertises staff holding up vaccination cards.

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Let’s talk about work and let’s talk about local government

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Published: Monday, 30 August 2021 14:27

It’s now more than two weeks since LGNSW and the three unions met to put together a joint statement to the industry providing guidance and leadership - just like we had when Covid burst onto the scene in 2020, when it was easy and we were all in agreement. No pussyfooting then. At that meeting we’d provided advice from our go-to barrister Ian Latham from Denman Chambers because the employment issues hinge on whether the employer can provide lawful directions for employees to be vaccinated before they return to work.

There have been cases where ill-informed individuals argued that the flu vaccination, being forced upon them in their healthcare role was a conspiracy, or some other fantasy, just like the anti-vaxxers we see in this argument. A series of cases have found it to be a lawful and reasonable direction. It is a reasonable expectation that the out-of-control spreading COVID can only provide a more compelling reason for employers to lawfully direct employees to be vaccinated before they return to work.

depa supports mandatory vaccination, with a reasonable timetable, given the difficulties in supply of the vaccine, and four weeks should be sufficient. We know there are councils providing access to vaccination for the employees, and those councils will be able to make it mandatory with a lesser period of notice.

depa supports councils making vaccination mandatory before a return to work and we will support councils responding to individuals deciding they won’t be vaccinated, by not allowing them to work until they are. Employees can take their own leave but there are no other payments available.

depa does not support individuals having the right to refuse a vaccination if they want to return to work, because they put at risk their workmates and safety in the workplace.

Employers have a huge risk to manage. The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 imposes onerous responsibilities on New South Wales employers and massive fines for failures to provide safe work and a safe workplace.

In the absence of some statements and leadership about what is appropriate and allowable from LGNSW, councils are being left to their own devices, and the more courageous councils are looking after their own staff and their own communities. Stop pussyfooting around, kill the virus off once and for all.

More than two weeks later there is still no agreement, and maybe we will never get the joint statement, but there are councils already making mandatory vaccinations for employees covered by Public Health Orders, working in child care and other services, those classified as authorised workers and out and about on construction sites, and other areas of important local government work where services need to be provided but employees protected.

We have members as authorised workers, and for those who weren’t vaccinated already, we’ve provided links to a specialist and targeted vaccination regime for those workers who do need to be at work.

Universal vaccination is the only way to kill the virus once and for all. Members of our Committee of Management are either fully vaccinated or in the process of being vaccinated and we urge you to get vaccinated. And apart from anything else, like making sure your friends and family are safe, when it comes time to return to work, or to the office, the Council may not let you in unless you are.

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Three quick questions for the undecided

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Published: Monday, 30 August 2021 14:26

Three quick questions for the undecided 

Question 1          If you are going to be in the car with someone, would you rather they be vaccinated, or not?

Question 2          if you’re inviting a friend to a family gathering with your much-loved family and grandparents, would you rather they be vaccinated, or not?

Question 3          If you’re going to work, would you rather those surrounding you be vaccinated, or not?

Let’s face it, only someone with a death wish is going to choose the risk of the unvaccinated.