Part 1 - OLG confesses - “OLG would have been aware of multiple cases of alleged (and now proven) misconduct when Deputy Secretary Hurst made a determination on 5 February 2021”

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Published: Wednesday, 20 December 2023 13:03

OLG has confessed at last.

“OLG was aware of the September 2020 incidents you have flagged very soon after the conduct occurred. This means OLG would have been aware of multiple cases of alleged (and now proven) misconduct when Deputy Secretary Hurst made a determination on 5 February 2021.

By the time the determination was ultimately made OLG was clearly aware there were a number of other incidents, while (and unfortunately), the determination implies there were none…”

Our November issue updated our dogged pursuit of the Office of Local Government since the former CEO Tim Hurst got it wrong in paragraph 20. The infamous paragraph 20 which, as a reminder, (because we are allowed to wallow in our vindication a bit after all this time) said this:

20.         I have considered and taken into account that this conduct occurred in a single episode, in the absence of any prior offending or post event conduct in the past two years and the  lack of previous incidents of misconduct on the part of Clr Funnell

depa immediately called that as demonstrably untrue. We knew of prior offending, and post event conduct and previous incidents of misconduct. Everyone did, but paragraph 20 makes the former councillor sound like a clean skin, when he was anything but.

We did everything we could: made an FOI application with the OLG which they rejected so quickly that our cheque in the mail would not have even arrived in Nowra; we made, and lost an application to NCAT trying to understand how OLG had got it so wrong; we appealed that NCAT decision, and lost that. OLG keeps its secrets better than the Kremlin.

Then OLG made an application to NCAT to have the former councillor prohibited from nominating as a councillor for five years. They based their application on two examples of behaviour. The two examples predated Hurst’s infamous paragraph 20. His incorrect observation was made on 5 February 2021, and the two examples of misbehaviour were on 14 and 18 September 2020, predating his monumental fail. Choosing those two examples when they now concede there were many, was almost a gift for us.

There is a cluster of people working in OLG who were complicit in this. We don’t know who they all are, but there are people in their legal branch or “the team”’ who monumentally failed and, up until this moment, got away with it. And others still working there, not in the legal branch knew it was incorrect at the time and have participated in the cover-up as well.

No one in the industry can match our dogged determination and, in a letter dated 12 December 2023, Brett Whitworth Deputy Secretary, Local Government confessed that OLG would have been aware of misconduct and Hurst’s statement was wrong.

There are significant concessions in the Deputy Secretary’s letter, we’ve only quoted two sentences above, and for those of you who have followed this as we pursued the regulator for their appalling behaviour, here are our two letters pursuing this and the OLG’s 12 December response.

The 12 December confession makes satisfying and highly-recommended reading. The letter still provides some justification for misleading everyone, “the team wanted to protect the integrity of the process” and we reject this as nonsense - the last resort of “the team” claiming their commitment to integrity when what they were doing destroyed the integrity of the process in a way that undermines the general integrity of OLG.

Neither does the letter deal with why they continued to cover it up. We can guess why they did (because they are miscreants) but we are now dealing with a new CEO managing a regulatory body who has learned lessons from this experience. The OLG still contains people who got it wrong and compromised their integrity.

depa’s actions and inexhaustible commitment have been vindicated. OLG will never do this again.

We accept the 12 December confession as resolving the matter - thank you Brett - although there are some people we look forward to seeing pursue employment interests elsewhere.

And speaking of miscreants…