Randwick GM’s bold move to protect senior staff

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Published: Tuesday, 08 November 2022 09:45

It’s now more than twelve months since the LGNSW Board resolved to create consensus with the unions about protecting senior staff and bringing them under the Award. It took a long time for the Office of Local Government to move, to develop a Discussion Paper, to put it out for consultation in the industry for “broader” consultation - people who may well want to continue the ability to sack senior staff without reason. We are all being very, very patient in a process that may not end in time to allow legislative change before the Government gets itself into election mode next year.

But Randwick Council’s GM, Therese Manns, thought it unnecessary to wait, and acted both immediately and decisively to support her senior staff. In an unprecedented move during this consultation period, she put two recommendations to the Council: that it prepare a submission supporting the historic consensus on providing fair employment for those currently called senior staff, and at the same time “convert Director level positions at Randwick City Council from senior staff contract to Local Government (State) Award”.

The Local Government Act 1993 requires councils to determine senior staff positions. The only position that must be senior staff and capable of being sacked without reason is the GM, and it is open to councils to not impose this unfair employment arrangement on anyone else. Smaller councils have been doing this for decades (although mostly because the second level doesn't meet the minimum remuneration levels required), Penrith Council has done this fairly recently but at last, to emphasise the importance of this historic consensus, the Randwick GM has fixed it locally. Inspirational.

Here is an extract from the minutes of the 18 October 2022 Council meeting:

If we had another seventy or eighty general managers prepared to do this, it wouldn’t matter how long it took Sagittarius A to deal with it. We urge all those other GMs to do it as well. Now that the ICAC has acknowledged the corruption risk with this form of employment, what’s holding them back?

With the consultation period ending on 15 November the optimists are hoping the OLG and the Government do the right thing on this and deliver the legislative changes this year.