Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Former Warrnambool Racing Club chief Peter Downs has quit the board of Lyndoch Living, having been reappointed for another three years just last October.

I don’t know exactly when Mr Downs* – who moved to Melbourne in September – resigned, but his board profile was on the Lyndoch website yesterday morning and gone by the end of the day.

This is awkward.

Lyndoch now has to fill his spot.

Mr Downs was one of nine board members, and Lyndoch must have at least nine board members under its constitution.

And here’s the catch: to become a board member, you must be first a general member.

Uh oh.

As we know, Lyndoch has only 15 14 members in total, all present and accounted for, including the board, the executive including the CEO, and two life members in Ron Patterson and David Atkinson who have already done their time.

There is nobody else, because, as we also know, nobody has been allowed to join.

No new members = no new board members.

Just yesterday there was a brilliant Letter to the Editor to the Warrnambool Standard by retired lawyer Lynn Hudson, a super-qualified person who applied to become a member of Lyndoch and was flatly rejected.

Her well-credentialled husband was also rejected. (You can read the letter here).

Lynn’s letter pulled back the veil on the farce that has seen a string of smart, caring, well-credentialled people who have applied for Lyndoch membership and been rejected with no explanation.

What an absolute joke. 

Except the joke, if it only were funny, is that the Lyndoch board now has to find a new board member.

It has four choices, only two of which will pass muster. 

One is to hand pick someone that passes the strict criteria for being a Lyndoch board member, which appears to be sit down, don’t ask tricky questions and be bedazzled by the plans to transform our aged care home into LyndochLand™.

Another is to advertise for a board member, which used to happen back in the days of equity, openness and gratitude for a community that loved Lyndoch.

A third is to do both of the above: advertise and then pick the person who has been worded up to apply.

Or…..

Or, the board just happens to have a membership application on its desk right now from one of the most qualified, most decent, most ethical, respected and upfront people in Warrnambool: Vicki Jellie, AM.

What a stroke of luck for Lyndoch Living!

Vicki, as we all know, was the driving force behind Peter’s Project, which saw a multi-million-dollar cancer treatment centre built in Warrnambool.

The AM after her name was awarded in the national Australia Day awards in 2017 as Australia’s Local Hero – a winner chosen out of the whole nation!

And yet here is Vicki, applying along with the rest of us, to see if she is good enough to be accepted as a member of Lyndoch Living where she used to work and where, first hand, she saw the changes that are now the subject of long-overdue scrutiny.

Mind you, I doubt Vicki would want to join the Lyndoch board as it stands. 

There are mounting questions about the direction of Lyndoch, and around staff morale, resignations and sick leave, which rolls on, believe me, except I am unable to speculate publicly as to why.

Mr Downs’ resignation has forced the hand of the board to reveal its true intentions and the next board meeting on 25 February will be very revealing.

We will know whether the board intends to once again be open and honest with the community that built and sustained Lyndoch for more than 60 years, or to remain a place of secrets and, I hope, growing unease.

One thing is certain, the game is up.

*I have left messages with Mr Downs late this afternoon for comment.
If you would like to apply to become a member of Lyndoch Living, here is the form.

If you would like to help keep the Terrier typing, please contribute below. 

The Tip Jar

This is worth running in full: a Letter to the Editor of the Warrnambool Standard from 15 February 2020.

It says it all.

Membership rejected:

“I recently applied to be a ‘Member’ at Lyndoch. The application form itself is a curiosity. It seeks no information re educational or professional qualifications or work or life experience. The form doesn’t require a witness. My application was peremptorily and summarily dismissed in what appears as one liner pro forma rejection letter.

I am a recently retired lawyer of nearly 40 years experience, previous AHPRA Board Member, previous Veterans Board Member, Supreme Court Registrar, Legal Consultant at a Royal Commission and so on.

Similarly my husband, a recently retired AFP Officer after 38 years of service including in Afghanistan was also rejected with the same wording from Lyndoch.

Has any member of the public not directly associated with Lyndoch been accepted as a member?

Is Lyndoch’s approach to bona fide member applications consistent with the requirements and expectations of the broader community whom Lyndoch purports to serve?”

Lynn Hudson, Warrnambool

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

It’s 12 months since the Warrnambool City Council started a new chapter under a new CEO, but still it staggers under the weight of the old regime that is pulling the place apart.

As I write, I have just heard from solid sources that two high-level staff have taken leave amid allegations of bullying.

Other senior staff  have taken sick leave or unexplained leave, including the head of governance who has not been seen for months.

Over the past six months, staff have continued to resign, paying tribute to their workmates, but saying they can no longer deal with the workplace culture and a lack of leadership.

One senior staffer who left put it this way in a letter to colleagues: “I urge you to stick to your values, call out things that are not in line with the organisation’s values and most importantly, be kind to each other.”

The elected council, meanwhile, remains riven with deep rivalries that pit the Cr Gaston/Neoh faction against the Cr Hulin/Cassidy/sometimes Herbert faction, in a bitter struggle which is circular and exhausting.

To be frank, despite the polite smiles in the council chamber, most of the time they want to rip each other’s heads off.

Whistleblowers have been isolated and the CEO’s supposed “open-door” policy remains blocked by gatekeepers, so staff  are reluctant or unable to step through.

Even the CEO is kept in the dark, having allegedly not been briefed about the looming credit card scandal until June last year, which is when the scandal broke publicly.

In that environment, faith is broken and people learn to just shut up and get on with it.

Or they resign.

I say all this being fully aware – and grateful – that the council is full of decent, solid, hard-working, loyal people who give their absolute best to Warrnambool as true servants of the public and they make up the vast majority of council staff.

But the fact is the new CEO, Peter Schneider, inherited a shite sandwich which he has been unable to turn around.

Just three months before Mr Schneider started, the results of an independent staff survey leaked into the public domain and it was not a pretty picture.

It found that since 2014, the council had gone backward on every key measure, including leadership, people, customer focus, and strategy and planning.

Most telling was that while 71 per cent of all staff said they felt proud to work at the council, only 51 per cent said they looked forward to coming to work each day.

In one department, only 39 per cent enjoyed coming to work each day.

That is not a sign of a happy place, but a place where good people keep hanging in there, hoping things will get better.

They haven’t – I have seen resignation letters and spoken to some of those who have left – and they won’t until three things happen:

a full, open and independent assessment of the workplace culture with a commitment to act on the results;

an end to the bunker mentality by being open and honest with the public;

a changing of the guard at the next council elections in October.

Without these, I fear that the WCC will continue to lumber along like a bus on broken wheels, wondering why it’s losing all of its passengers.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

In the past two years, Lyndoch Living spent more on lawyers, consultants and accountants than it did on food for residents.

In 2018 and 2019, Lyndoch shelled out an astonishing $2.318 million on accountants, lawyers and consultants, while it spent $2.194 million on food supplies.

In 2018, the gap between the two was especially stark, with less than $1 million spent on food supplies – $994,068 – compared with $1.238 million on accountants, lawyers and consultants.

Chew on that for a moment and I suspect you will feel the same sense of indigestion that came over me.

These unpalatable facts are among the many that fall out when you take a close look at Lyndoch’s financial statements – and a lot of terriers are now taking a good, hard look at the figures, both old and new.

This is how we know that in 2013 the food bill was $992,516, which is not that far off the $994,068 that was spent five years’ later.

Did I miss something? Has the cost of groceries gone down?

I can tell you that what residents pay to live in a nursing home has certainly not gone down nor stayed the same for the past five years.

If you are going to cut costs, surely as an aged care home you don’t start with the food bill?

Judging by the 2019 financials, there is plenty of fat to trim elsewhere, starting with administration costs and the ever-growing number of staff  in the corporate area (59 and counting).

Not surprisingly, the cost of food vs lawyers/consultants/auditors was not mentioned at the Lyndoch Living annual general meeting last October and we can only make the comparison now because of two things:

The full figures have finally been released via the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission, and, for the first time, legal fees and consultants’ fees have been published in the audited statements.

Speaking of auditors, wow, has that bill shot through the roof.

Last year, Lyndoch’s auditing costs tripled from $13,950 in 2018 to $48,500 in 2019, which is five times what Lyndoch paid for auditing in 2013 ($9800).

Lyndoch changed auditors from local firm McLaren Hunt (which used to be Coffey Hunt) and replaced them with RSM Australia.

Perhaps a stack more number crunching needed to be done because Lyndoch decided to become a company limited by guarantee, buy two medical centres and also the May Noonan nursing home in Terang (I will write more about the medical centres soon).

But even the auditors were paid small beans compared with the $2.25 million spent on lawyers and consultants in the past two years.

$2.25 million.

Oh my goodness, I really am in the wrong business.

This $2.25 million would include hiring consultants for the $100 million masterplan and to write the (secret) business plan for the new medical centre that Lyndoch intends to start building soon, even though it’s still not sure how much money it needs to borrow to pay for it.

The lawyers, I assume, would also have been hired to guide the masterplan, to set up Lyndoch Healthcare Pty Ltd, and to oversee how Lyndoch now operates as a company limited by guarantee.

There are also the less obvious fees, such as the solicitor “retained” to provide advice to the company secretary, who doesn’t have legal or accounting qualifications.

All of this – millions of dollars in consulting, legal, accounting and administration bills – is such a long, long way from where Lyndoch started as a much-loved, community owned facility for our aged to see out their final years in comfort.

Back in the beginning, people donated their time and their own money to make sure Lyndoch found its feet and this is why there remains such a strong, emotional connection between Warrnambool and our iconic aged care home.

The board needs to get that.

Lyndoch has to grow and keep up with the times, we all get that, but how it is growing – and at what cost – remains at the heart of this investigation and we will keep going.

More soon.

If you would like to see The Terrier keep digging, click on the link below to throw something in the tip jar.

Letter to Warrnambool City Councillors 2 Feb 2020

By Lee-Anne Clarke and on behalf of  Elder Aunty Julie Jose and Tom Clarke

Today we are writing to you, as we are aware that there is a Warrnambool Council Meeting
on the 3 February 2020. On your Agenda for this meeting, you have listed 5.2 Horses on
Beach – Land Manager Consent Spookys.

Our interest in the Agenda Item stipulated is to add our Cultural lens and views as
Traditional Owners of the Kirrae Whurrong/Peek Wurrung people. Our view on our Cultural
Landscape; our Traditional Lands of Eastern Maar people.

We do not want commercial horses on the BCR – Peek Wurrung Dune Country.

BCR – Peek Wurrung Dune Country:

Along this Coastline beginning around Port Campbell, The Twelve Apostles (Kirrae
Whurrong) and Point Ritchie – Moyjil (Peek Wurrung), Hopkins River, Thunder Point, Peek
Wurrung Dune Country, further down Tarerer, right through to Gunditjmara Budj Bim
Cultural Landscape (Now on the World Heritage Listing), we have thousands of years of
scientific evidence of First Nations occupation.

This part of our Country in which we as Eastern Maar call our Ancestral and Spiritual Homelands. This area in which has been
recorded where our people were quite heavily populated and utilizing this are for
Traditional Customs, enjoyment, economy and environment, Ceremony and trade over
many, many thousands of years. In fact Moyjil being investigated and dated as old as 80,000
to 120,000 thousand years. Moyjil is around 5 kms from our Dune Country.

Does this not tell you something?

In the Reserve, it has been well known that firstly the commercial horse training has begun
and continued illegally for years and never reprimanded or picked up as an Illegal activity on
the Reserve within your Council.

During this time, there has been unsurmountable damage that has occurred that is
irreparable within the HH Track area. Ancient sands damage and artefacts damaged with
riders and their horses.

Within these Dunes, we have Burial sites, artefacts, shell middens, hearth ovens and
ceremonial sites.

We also hold Dreaming Stories. Dreaming Stories are Creation stories of the Cultural
Landscape. Dreaming Stories are treasured and held in high regard across the whole of
Australia.

We also have a healthy native wildlife and birdlife there who consider this place their home.
These animals and birds whom we are connected to via our Totems and incorporates our
Ceremonial dance, our way of working in synchronicity with Country; to sustain healthy
country.

We would like you to consider Peek Wurrung Dune Country to be delicately nurtured in way
of supporting Traditional Custodians and wider Community to care for Country.

Protection of Cultural Heritage:

In caring for Country, we would envisage, seeking governmental support, and funding for
this area. We would expect there to be a demand of Tourism in the area as there are rising
interests in Aboriginal Culture as is well received across other places of interests regarding
Aboriginal Culture.

We would believe the protection of Cultural Heritage needs to be recognized in this area,
for First Nations, and be given the opportunity to create an infallible foundation in looking
after this amazing reserve, and give the respect it deserves.

For the Protection of Cultural Heritage versus commercial horse training on sand dunes and
beaches these two are in direct conflict. There is greater support for the protection of
Cultural Heritage and Tourism.

We believe in investing in long term Cultural Heritage, as tourism is the future.

As to the industrialization of horses, training on our highly sensitive Dune Country and
highly concentrated Aboriginal Cultural Heritage our artefacts submerged within the ever so
sensitive BCR – Peek Wurrung Dune Country, would implicate further destruction through
this type of abuse within this area.

We are extremely concerned about the irresponsible destruction, damage and interference
the proposed activity will undoubtedly bring to our little and remaining Cultural Heritage.

We consider this our natural environment our Cathedral, our Church.

Our unyielding love for this Country has our Elders terribly upset, concerned, and have cried openly for Country
such is the love and raw emotion that genuinely attaches us to Dune Country.
It would be irresponsible for us not to speak out as next of kin of our Ancestral and Spiritual
homelands.

As a lure from the Gambling Industry, a consideration of a yes vote, would invoke serious
implications of the whole of the reserve as time goes on.
Please shut the gate on this now and save the little remaining pristine area that we have
left, the Belfast Coastal Reserve – Peek Wurrung Dune Country.

The statistics show the horses do not need this Reserve to use for their personal gain in the
racing industry.

As Traditional Custodians, in dignity, we would like to ask you to, please do not allow
commercial racehorses on Belfast Coastal Reserve – Peek Wurrung Dune Country.

Wurruk.