By Carol Altmann

A few days ago, the South Australian town of Port Pirie had a mural by convicted sex offender Rolf Harris in one of its theatres and now it doesn’t: it has been painted over.

No hand-wringing, no agonising that all “art” is sacred, and – thank god – no piece of black Perspex bolted over the top like a giant cover-up, which is the best the Warrnambool City Council can do with the Harris mural at the back of the Lighthouse Theatre.

Once the presence of the painting became public, its owner – the Northern Festival Centre – acted swiftly. Less than a week later, the painting is gone.

Such a decision rests on one simple belief: that we no longer tolerate sexual abuse and sexual assault against women, children or men.

Warrnambool City Council, are you taking notice?

See how this works? (Note, Crs Sue Cassidy, Peter Hulin and Tony Herbert earlier this year voted to get rid of the Harris mural. Crs Neoh, Gaston, Anderson and Owen voted to keep it covered.)

Despite the Port Pirie decision, Caravaggio paintings are still hanging in galleries around the world. Churches are still standing. And, despite warnings from our own council CEO Bruce Anson, there has been no revival in Port Pirie of the anti-intellectual book burnings of Nazi Germany, although I guess it is early days.

No, there has been none of that muddying rubbish. The decision-makers at the Northern Festival Centre just got on with it and got rid of it.

And I applaud them. Oh my, how I applaud them.

We can no longer say that we “didn’t know” what these sexual predators did: we do know.

And we can longer say that we “don’t know” the horrific impact that sexual assault and abuse has on the survivors: we do know and in 2018, celebrity is no longer an excuse.

From Bill Cosby, to Don Burke, to Donald Trump, to Brett Kavanagh, to Harvey Weinstein, to Kevin Spacey, to Rolf Harris, to Woody Allen, to Roman Polanski, to Pablo Picasso (#hannahgadsby #nanette), these perpetrators are being brought to account via the growing #metoo movement.

I keep hoping that one day, some day, the Warrnambool City Council will show a similar leadership to that of the Northern Festival Centre in Port Pirie.

Until then, we will continue to be a city that makes excuses for the inexcusable and that, to me, will always be a source of great shame.

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By Carol Altmann

There is an update to this story: the council is now seeking $400k from the WRC for the carpark in exchange for approval to run horses on Levy’s and Lady Bay. It is now listed for a decision at next Monday’s council meeting (1/10/18). You can read the full documents from page 335 onward here.

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The W’bool Racing Club is offering the W’bool City Council a big lump of sugar as part of its push to have racehorses back at Levy’s Beach by December: a $267,000 “bespoke” carpark at Lady Bay, no less.

Under a proposal put forward by the WRC, it will pay for a $267,000 upgrade to build the “bespoke” carpark at the Lady Bay breakwater, next to the existing carpark at the Pavilion cafe, specifically for use by horse trainers.

A specialist horse training carpark with proper wash-down facilities was part of the masterplan prepared for the breakwater.

It is understood the WRC hopes the State Government will chip in at least some of the $267,000 for the carpark but, if not, the racing industry will fund the carpark anyway.

The sweetener comes as the WRC seeks to have some horse training back on to Levy’s Beach in time for the all-important Spring racing carnival that includes the Melbourne Cup on November 6.

A temporary training arrangement at Levy’s Beach ended on September 14, pending the full implementation of the new Belfast Coastal Reserve Management Plan.

Under the controversial management plan, up to 120 racehorses a day will be allowed to train on the beach and up to 40 a day in the dunes.

The new, temporary arrangement, however, would allow up to 6o horses a day on Levy’s Beach and 40 a day in the dunes between now and December.

For the arrangement to go ahead, the WRC must get the approval of council, Parks Victoria and the Dept of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.

As such, gaining the Warrnambool City Council’s approval is an important step.

Another part of the deal is a reduction in the number of racehorses training on Lady Bay beach.

As the council knows, people are less enthusiastic about the damage done to the foreshore from hundreds of hooves, than they are about watching the horses swimming.

Under the new proposal, the number of horses along Lady Bay beach would be almost halved – from a maximum of 96 to 50 per day – and up to 116 per day swimming, with a combined total of no more than 116 horses either on sand or in the water.

The council is expected to make a decision on all of the proposals shortly, but given its previous support (the vote was 6/1) for racehorses training at Levy’s Beach, it is unlikely to turn such a deal down.

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By Carol Altmann

Here is a legal loophole that is so big, you could drive a truck through it: you can be a local councillor AND run for parliament at the same time.

That is, of course, unless your council draws up a policy that says you can’t.

The Warrnambool City Council has no such policy.

This is why former Warrnambool mayor Kylie Gaston could announce way back in May that she was running for Labor at the next state election on November 24 which, at that time, was still six whole months away.

And it is why former Warrnambool mayor Michael Neoh could announce this week that he will run as an Liberal National Independent at the same election, which is still two months away.

Neither he nor Cr Gaston have to step aside.

In fact, technically, they don’t have to step aside until nominations for the state election close on November 8. (Independent nominations close on November 9, so Cr Neoh gets an extra day).

That is another six weeks away.

The current Local Government Act allows this, largely because it still hasn’t caught up with the modern way of doing things, where loads of wanna-be MPs are launching their political careers via the grassroots of local councils.

There is nothing wrong with a person running for local council with a view to bigger things – that’s called ambition – but there is a massive conflict of interest when you decide to run for a state election and hold on to your council spot.

When are you speaking to the media as a councillor? When are you speaking as a candidate? Do the public spot the difference? (I doubt it).

And how can your council profile, all of the free publicity and the behind-the-scenes-access to council business not be anything but a massive boost in an election campaign?

Michael Neoh has been in this territory before, back in 2015, when he ran as an Independent Liberal National candidate while still Mayor of Warrnambool.

The council didn’t ask him to step aside, so he didn’t.

Here is what Cr Neoh said to me in an email at the time:

“I have a campaign car that I use and also non-council equipment.

I am following the MAV policy in regards to taking leave of absence and I do not use mayoral invited functions to campaign.

If I meet with stakeholders outside of Council duties and as a candidate, I make it very clear that I am an election candidate and are not representing council.”

Having seen Cr Neoh get away with it, Cr Gaston has since been following the same map, with her Labor-Party-emblazoned car parked in the WCC carpark while she performs, as Cr Neoh did in 2015, her council duties.

Again, neither Cr Gaston nor Cr Neoh are breaking any rules or laws, they are simply doing what they are allowed to get away with.

Like any savvy politician, they are milking every opportunity to maintain their public profiles, and the council is a perfect platform.

The Victorian Local Government Association is on to this.

It put out eight guidelines for councils, asking that they develop their own rules to manage councillors who run for state or federal parliament.

The guideline that nails it is this: “The taking of leave of absence immediately after nominating as a candidate until the conclusion of the election campaign”.

Simple, huh?

Don’t expect the councillors themselves to suggest the Warrnambool City Council write such a policy. Two of our seven already benefit from not having such a thing in place.

It is up to ratepayers – again – to say this is not good enough, that we are not interested in subsidising councillors’ political aspirations and that we want their mind firmly on the job of running our council, not how they can move on from it.

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By Carol Altmann

Some time ago, a young Warrnambool lawyer who likes to crunch the numbers told me that our council was big, fat and bloated with an unsustainable salary bill for a city this size.

More recently, there has been a steady stream of people, all women, contacting me to say the council had turned into a dispiriting boys’ club, despite more women on the ground.

Having taken a closer look, I believe they are both right.

Let’s start with the bloat.

There are 731 people working at Warrnambool City Council (full time, part time and casual) and last financial year the cost to ratepayers was $31.5 million.

At the same time, the council collected $31.05 million in rates (not counting the $4.7 million waste management fee, which goes directly to providing a garbage service).

Look closely at those two figures again and you will see that every single dollar collected in rates  – $31.05 million – is equivalent to the amount needed to cover the cost of the staffing bill of $31.5 million. 

This financial year, the gap will widen.

WCC staff costs will jump by another couple of million to $33.2 million and rates, meanwhile, will bring in $31.97 million, which would actually not cover the bill.

With a cap on rates, something needs to give, and perhaps the first place to look is in the upper deck, where the salary packages are lucrative compared to those working at the grassroots.

According to figures given by the council to a parliamentary inquiry into rate capping, in 2016 the council had 21 senior officers each earning a total salary package of more than $120,000 a year – that equates to more than $2300 a week (before tax and including super, etc). 

This figure, by the way, doesn’t include the CEO, Bruce Anson, who has a package currently between $310,000 – $320,000.

When I asked the council if it still had 21 senior officers earning a total salary package of more than $120,000 a year, it was hard to get a straight answer.

Instead, it provided a convoluted response about the intricacies of the Local Government Act and a list that shows only seven senior council staff now earn a package of more than $130,000 a year, including the CEO and someone who does not report directly to the CEO, but who earns a sweet package of $145,000. (Who could that be?)

I am not sure where the other 15 staff have disappeared to, but I suspect they are still earning more than $120,000, and I suspect they are among the 22 senior people listed in the council’s “organisational structure” on its website, although I don’t know this for sure.

I can confidently say, however, that the vast majority of these big earners are not women, which brings us to the second point about the council becoming a boys’ club.

Leaving aside broader and worrying allegations that I have been receiving about how the boys’ club operates – I will save that for another day – I am going to focus simply on the numbers.

Check out the chart below:

As you can see, there are only six women in the council upper ranks, and only one, Community Development head Vikki King, holds a director position.

Two departments – Corporate Strategies and City Infrastructure – don’t have any senior women at all and City Growth has just one.

But wait, the council will say, we have more women than men on staff, which is absolutely true. There are 497 women, but only 227 full-time equivalent (45%), which means the majority are casual and part-time.

By contrast, there are 234 men, of which 163.8 are full-time equivalent – this is 70%.

As we all know by now, just having women around doesn’t make a place gender equal.

What really matters is what the women do, the positions they hold, and the influence they can wield (just ask the Federal Liberal Party) and, on this score, our council is seriously lacking.

If you are interested in transparency within government, visit The Guardian’s new The Transparency Project, which is exactly what journalism used to be about and can continue to be, thanks to donations, crowdfunding and partnerships rather than paywalls.

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