Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Let’s get straight to it. Lyndoch Living is a registered charity that has no right to spend more than $150,000* sponsoring Warrnambool’s Grand Annual steeplechase.

In fact, this immoral deal between our community-owned aged care home and the Warrnambool Racing Club makes a lie of an important promise made by Lyndoch to us 10 years ago.

Let me explain.

Contrary to recent reports, there is no “commercial arm” of Lyndoch that will provide private money for Lyndoch to sponsor the Grand Annual Steeplechase for another three years, having already sponsored it for three.

The race is being sponsored by Waterfront Living, which are the up-market retirement apartments built by Lyndoch near the Hopkins River bridge and which first went on sale in 2014.

Waterfront Living was built by Lyndoch using public money, is still managed by Lyndoch, and remains a full subsidiary of Lyndoch – the board and CEO who look after Lyndoch are also in charge of Waterfront Living.

Waterfront is not some sort of separate, private entity that gets to spend its money wherever it likes. It is a part of Lyndoch, which is a charity.

And here comes the crunch.

Why did Lyndoch build these apartments? To make money to put back into Lyndoch.

Former Lyndoch CEO Rhys Boyle, who retired in 2015, made this very promise to the community when the apartments were built.

This is what he said at the time:

“Every cent made by this project will go back into our business to keep it operational.”

Every cent.

And then this:

“This development isn’t about making profit for profit’s sake. Lyndoch as an organisation can’t be benevolent to our residents if we’re not making enough money to put back into the business.”

 

I added the bold type, because I need to shout these words from the page.

We are being duped.

We now have clear proof – from the very top of Lyndoch – that the money coming in to Lyndoch from the apartment sales was never intended to go toward a horse race.

It was to go toward caring for the residents.

There is no possible justification for such a sponsorship deal, especially when Lyndoch is operating at a loss, which it has done for four of the past five years.

Any money from Waterfront – every cent – is to go back into Lyndoch so the hard-working staff can provide the best care to residents, including things like new, comfortable chairs, quality food, good coffee and yes, a steady supply of sheets, towels and face-washers.

I, for one, have had enough of the spin and the failure of the board to scrutinise every inch of Lyndoch’s spending on our behalf.

The board, if it needs reminding, is there to represent the community who still own Lyndoch, just as we have for more than 60 years.

The board is our voice and they are letting us down.

If there is one thing about our community, perhaps because we are surrounded by dairy farms, it’s that we can smell the scent of bullshite and we know when things are not right.

Sponsoring a horse race with Lyndoch money is not right.

As the ultimate owners of Lyndoch, it is time for the community to speak up on behalf of those who can’t, because if we don’t, we are letting down our loved ones in Lyndoch and we are letting down all of the residents and their families.

You can contact the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, the Hon Luke Donnellan, here: luke.donnellan@parliament.vic.gov.au

You can contact the Lyndoch chair, Kerry Nelson, here: knelson@mpower.org.au

And you can contact the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission here: https://www.acnc.gov.au/raise-concern

I wish I could say this was the end of the Lyndoch stories, but there is still a long way to go before everything is out on the table.

More soon.

* the cost of the sponsorship has never been declared by Lyndoch, but is believed to be around $80,000-$100,000 for each three-year sponsorship.

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The Tip Jar

Carol “Alice” Altmann – The Terrier

Take my hand and follow me into the strange, alternative world of Lyndoch Living Wonderland, a sparkly world with a lovely colour palette, and where a deficit is “a good result”.

Lyndoch has just posted its fourth deficit in the past five years, but according to those who sit at the big table, there is no need for concern.

(Caterpillar: I don’t know what they’re smokin’ over there in the boardroom, but I want to try it!)

What’s more, Lyndoch CEO Doreen Power, who was appointed in 2015, has announced – without so much as a twitch of an eye – that we can expect our largest, fully-booked aged care home to run at a loss for another two to three years.

This means that by 2022, Lyndoch will have run at a loss for six or possibly seven years out of the past eight.

(Cheshire Cat: keep smiling everyone, keep smiling! Oh blast, here comes Alice with her practical facts…)

In 2014, the year former CEO Rhys Boyle retired, Lyndoch was comfortably in the black and recorded a $901,214 surplus, which came on top of surpluses in 2012 and 2013.

Here are the figures since:

2015: $208,707 deficit

2016: $130,037 deficit

2017: $846,563 surplus

2018: $1,573,98 deficit 

2019: $398,356 deficit

I think this tells us pretty clearly that Lyndoch is living beyond its means – each year it is spending more than it makes – but somehow an almost $400,000 loss like last year is a “good result”.

No it isn’t. It’s a bad result.

(Mad Hatter: Oh Alice, anyone knows a good result is better than a bad result which is better than a worserer result. Pour me some tea!)

If we push aside the spin and boil it down to the absolute basics, Lyndoch has one important job to do, which is to care for our elderly and infirm, for which it receives money from the Federal Government, the State Government, live-in residents, clients and its own investments.

From all these things, Lyndoch last year received a total income of $38.9 million.

It spent $39.3 million, in other words, it went over its budget…again.

On top of this, Lyndoch also confirmed a slightly awkward piece of news, which The Terrier flagged back in October, which was $11.3 million was wiped off its assets after certain, unnamed buildings were re-valued using a different method that, from what I can see, used market prices.

This is like owning a house you thought was worth $12 million, only to be told it is actually worth $1 million.

(Mad Hatter: Oh who cares? $1 million, $12 million, it’s only on paper! Tear it up and start over! More tea?)

Have a big sip of whatever you are drinking, because now we wade deeper into the forest of figures in search of the bottom line.

In 2015, Lyndoch had total assets of $96.5 million – this is whole shopping cart: the properties, the cash, the residential bond money, the investments, the cups and saucers, cutlery and cars.

At the same time, it had expenses, or liabilities, of $27.7 million, leaving it with a bottom line of $68.7 million.

By 2019, Lyndoch had total assets of $98.9 million – (White Rabbit: clap, clap, wonderful, magnificent! Well done!) – but….it also had liabilities of $47.7 million, leaving it with a bottom line of $51.1m.

This means Lyndoch’s overall bottom line has fallen from $68.7 million to $51.1 million in just five years.

(White Rabbit: Oh. But the cash, dear Alice, what about the cash?)

Lyndoch has plenty of cash: $48.7 million in cash and other investments, except they can’t touch most of it – around $30 million from my reckoning – because it is tied up in residents’ bonds.

(White Rabbit: So I can’t spend it on a shiny new pocket watch? Damn.)

As we know, other things have changed dramatically in the past five years too, including just about every member of the executive team being replaced, from the Director of Nursing, to the Chief Financial Officer, to the Human Resources head, with more than 80 staff having gone elsewhere.

I have since been told by a strong source that my figures are wrong and it’s closer to 120 staff, but I can’t verify this.

(Queen of Hearts: At last, at last, my walk on part…Off with their heads, I say! Off with their heads! Strike up the trumpets!)

No wonder the board wasn’t keen to trumpet all of this news at the annual general meeting last October, where written questions from the public were ignored, because they were not members of Lyndoch.

Anyone who has since tried to become a member has been rejected.

(Queen of Hearts: Close the gates! Don’t let the rabble in!)

And the crazy making thing is that despite these worrying figures, Lyndoch is not tightening its belt, but going on a spending spree: a $100 million masterplan that includes buying two medical clinics for a cost of $1.6 million, including $1.3 million for the Warrnambool Medical Clinic, so it can move them to a medical clinic that it will build.

(Mad Hatter: And don’t forget the horse race! We want to go to the races, so we bought the race! Giddyup Dormouse!)

I am worried, dear citizens, that we who own Lyndoch are being dragged deep into this wonderland and we won’t be able to find our way out, which is why we have to keep going.

(Caterpillar: Ah, chill baby and pass me the pipe.)

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

The push to allow large-scale racehorse training at Levy’s Beach will return to the Warrnambool City Council again next Monday night (3/2) for a crucial vote that goes far beyond horse racing.

It is, instead, a line in the sand: a time to decide whether Warrnambool is prepared to step into a new way of thinking – a bold Warrnambool – or to remain stuck in the past, as an old Warrnambool.

On the surface, the seven councillors will effectively be asked again whether they support or reject large numbers of racehorses – up to 120 a day on the beach and 40 on a dune – being able to train in the coastal reserve at Levy’s Beach/Spookies Beach all year-round. (This would be in addition to training at Lady Bay for nine months of the year.)

But this vote is also a test of whether, in 2020, we, as a city, are prepared to continue to ignore the wishes of the traditional custodians, the Eastern Maar peoples, for whom the coast around Levy’s is known as Tarerer.

I find it incomprehensible that the council would even consider such a move when traditional custodians are against it, as was first made clear when the consultation process began more than two years ago.

We are all living on Aboriginal land and yet we still find this concept discomforting, rather than a privilege.

Indeed one of the arguments used by Racing Victoria is that horse training on Warrnambool’s beaches goes back to the 1800s – and this is supposed to be a persuasive argument – yet the indigenous connection to this coast stretches back at least 60,000 years and possibly 120,000 years.

Think about that for one second.

Despite this incredible history, it is the European connection through racehorses, a mere speck of sand by comparison, that is held up as evidence of a rich tradition, a deep heritage and a right of passage.

How demeaning this is to the traditional custodians; how gutting.

Like so much of south-west Victoria, Warrnambool has a shocking history around the treatment of indigenous peoples and the destruction of an ancient culture, none of which we learnt about at school, and which contributed to local, white kids like me growing up with a fear and suspicion of Aboriginal people.

I knew nothing until I was old enough to read this history for myself and to learn about the full impact of dispossession and discrimination.

I am still reading. Over the Christmas holidays I devoured Archie Roach’s magnificent autobiography, Tell Me Why, and Robbie Lowe Snr’s book, The Mish, which spoke of a Warrnambool where I grew up, but barely recognised, because as a middle-class, white kid, I had no idea how life was for those living in Framlingham, just 20kms from Warrnambool, but as far away from my daily life as Mars.

We can no longer use the excuse of ignorance and say that we don’t know, or don’t understand, the indigenous connections to Country.

Times are changing.

Indeed our council includes a Welcome to Country at civic events, and a smoking ceremony at its Australia Day function, and takes great pride in paying its respects to indigenous elders (“past and present”) at the start of each council meeting.

How can our councillors accept all of the above, yet fail to listen to the elders trying to protect and restore a precious slice of Tarerer coast that, even under council laws, is classed as a coastal reserve?

It’s not enough to fly the Aboriginal flag outside the council chambers in Liebig St, or to have a striking Adnate mural of Bernice Clarke and Rylan Miller on the side of South-West TAFE.

These are all important, symbolic gestures that make us feel good, but unless we are prepared to change our thinking around our decision-making, that is all they will be: symbolic.

The Eastern Maar have been fighting to be heard and surely now is the time to listen and to act or we will remain stuck under the heavy shadow of colonialism that has burdened Warrnambool for so long.

Monday night will be a critical test of where we stand as a city and where we are headed, and I, for one, am not going to miss it.

The meeting is at the WCC chambers, 25 Liebig St, starting at 5.45pm.

This article is part of an ongoing series supported by the Walkley Foundation, including funding Freedom of Information applications and other research tools.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

It’s fascinating to see the conversations that go on behind the scenes between the powerful, like an exchange between the former CEO of the Warrnambool City Council, Bruce Anson, and the former CEO of the Warrnambool Racing Club, Peter Downs.

It is a brief exchange – and released only through Freedom of Information of course – but it says so much.

It reveals that Mr Downs met with Mr Anson on Thursday 8 February 2018 with a problem.

The problem was that racehorse training along a section of Port Fairy’s East Beach was no longer possible because, wait for it, those pesky Hooded Plovers had turned up and made it “unworkable” for the racehorses.

But Mr Downs had an idea, which he put to Mr Anson in writing after their catch up: what about giving permission for 50 racehorses to use Lady Bay from Monday 12 February, from dawn until 8am?

Under the council rules, racehorse training at Lady Bay did not normally start until 1 March.

There is a very good reason for this, as Mr Downs acknowledges:  “We understand that there are other beach users using this area at this season of the year”.

(That season of the year is called summer and funnily enough there are loads of “beach users” who like to use Warrnambool’s main beach in summer.)

Not only did Mr Downs think having 50 racehorses training on Lady Bay in summer was a great idea, he also hoped the council could make it happen with just four days’ turnaround from his meeting with Mr Anson.

How? Well, “a circular resolution via email” to councillors.

Excuse me?

No meeting of councillors? No discussion with the public? Not even a notice in the Saturday newspaper?

Was Mr Downs seriously suggesting the council could change the rules by flicking an email around to councillors for a “yes” or a “no”?

You would expect Mr Anson, as CEO, to have clutched his belly, laughed out loud and spluttered “Don’t be so bloody ridiculous Peter!”

But no.

Mr Anson got straight on to it, to see if it could be done.

Within 24 hours Mr Anson had replied to Mr Downs, having done something that the council should have done when the WRC also wanted to access Levy’s Beach for racehorse training – he checked the council laws.

Lo and behold, it is illegal under local laws to bend the rules around racehorse training at Lady Bay without consulting the public.

Who would have thought? Fancy not being able to change a local law via Snapchat or WhatsApp, how inconvenient.

“Sorry I cannot assist in this instance,” Mr Anson wrote in his reply to Mr Downs via his ipad.

In this instance.

Ah, the power of three little words.

Mr Anson is no longer CEO, but the councillors are due to vote again on large-scale racehorse training at Levy’s Beach/Spooky’s Beach which, you may recall, was also found to be illegal under council laws and saw the Planning Minister step in to make it legal.

A sunset clause on the whole mess lapsed on 30 November last year, so each councillor will once again have to decide where they stand on the issue which continues to divide the community.

The first council meeting of the year is next Monday…and the election is in October.

Stay tuned.

The story would not have been possible without a grant from the Walkley Foundation Public Fund which supports investigative journalism.

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Horse racing is all about numbers and here is a set that reveals just how dominant disgraced trainer Darren Weir and his suspended side-kick Jarrod McLean were in turning our beaches into racehorse training tracks.

The figures, released as part of a Freedom of Information application to the Warrnambool City Council, relate to the number of trainers and racehorses that used Lady Bay each month from the first day of Autumn to the first day of Summer in 2017 and 2018.

The numbers, collected by the Warrnambool Racing Club, show that more than 1000 racehorse workouts a month were happening up and down Lady Bay, spread out between 21 trainers.

The reality is, however, that the vast majority of horses were from the stables of just two of the 21 trainers: Weir and McLean.

Here is a snapshot:

In August 2018, when Weir was at the height of his powers in Warrnambool, 1141 racehorses ran up and down Lady Bay and 877 of these – or 76 per cent – were workouts by horses trained by Weir or McLean.

In September 2018, there were 1123 horse workouts on Lady Bay and 838 – 74 per cent – were trained by Weir or McLean.

In October, there was a whopping 1299 horse workouts, of which the pair trained 951 – 73 per cent – and in November 2018, there were 1339 horses and their share was 909 horses – 67 per cent.

Between them, Weir and McLean had almost 1000 horse workouts a month at Warrnambool’s main beach, for a mere cost of $1.50 per horse (no GST) paid to the council for the privilege.

Such was Weir’s dominance and influence that, as we know, the quivering council voted 6/1 in December 2018 to open up Levy’s Beach to racehorse training because Weir threatened to go elsewhere unless he had access to Warrnambool’s beaches 365 days a year.

The threat, of course, was that without Weir, Warrnambool’s racing industry would collapse and, without access to the beaches, all the other trainers might pack up and leave too.

Neither has happened.

Levy’s Beach has been closed to racehorse training since late 2016 and remains closed as the WRC continues to work through various approvals.

I had a look through the list of the other 19 trainers using Lady Bay and not one of them, from what I can see, has left Warrnambool because they haven’t been able to access Levy’s Beach.

(Both Weir and McLean have gone as they, between them, face a raft of serious charges for animal cruelty and other offences.)

In the meantime, the Ballarat Turf Club is forging ahead with investing millions in state-of-the-art, all-weather training facilities at its racetrack, making it a magnet to top trainers moving out of Caulfield and Flemington.

The State Government has decided both Caulfield and Flemington need to hand over more of what is actually public (Crown) land for public use.

Our public beaches, meanwhile, remain a battleground. Ah, the irony.

I will be writing more from the results of this FOI request, which sought all correspondence between the council, the Warrnambool Racing Club and Racing Victoria for the period September 1, 2016 and March 14, 2019, relating to racehorse training at Levy’s, Spooky’s Beach and Lady Bay. It took nine months and produced more than 500 pages of documents (including lots of spreadsheets) at a cost of $292.

The FOI would not have been possible without a grant from the Walkley Foundation Public Fund which supports investigative journalism.