Carol Altmann – The Terrier
JUST IN: This is a shock – the W’bool City Council has voted 4/3 tonight to ask the Local Government Minister to look at ALL aspects of the council’s financial performance and governance for the seven years up to 31.12.2018.
Cr Peter Hulin’s motion was supported by Mayor Tony Herbert, Cr Sue Cassidy, and Cr Robert Anderson.
Such a review, if the Minister agrees to it, would be at no cost to council.
Wow. This a true win for people power. An absolute win.
Meanwhile, Cr Kylie Gaston – who voted against this move – was ropable that The Terrier was exposing all sorts of things and made sure that we knew it. My hair was on fire by the end of that blast!
In particular, my reporting on the business links between the council’s economic development manager Shaun Miller and private businessman Ravin Merchandani really grated Cr Gaston’s wick. Why?
I must be on to something, so you know what that means, don’t you? On. We. Go.
Last night was a great win and a vindication of all of your hard work. I am concerned that one of the two proposed investigations will not go forward as governments are usually loathe to have two examinations of the same set of facts running at the same time. It is expensive, often unnecessary and, worst of all for the government, could lead to opposing conclusions. Personally, I hope that the Minister chooses to put an Administrator in to run things for a while, get the house in order and oversee a new election of councillors. But that’s the gold standard and we are likely to get a lesser option.
I have no idea was got into Cr Gaston last night. Her speech (if you could call it that) was bitter, vindictive and personal and based on emotion rather than fact. I can think of no circumstances when it would be appropriate for any Councillor to speak like that in public. If you had ever have made a significant factual error some one would have sued you by now and I think you were also very careful not to imply anything that was not supported by fact. Cr Gaston had the effect of seriously damaging her credibility while, at the same time, boosting yours. Probably the last thing from her mind. If I were writing her Personal Performance Evaluation right now, somewhere on it would appear the words: ‘lacks judgement.
You are right about the ‘double’ investigations which could soon be triple, but to my mind they all tackle different things: 1. the independent audit of the council’s policies and processes around the use of credit cards 2. the Ombudsman investigating the council’s handling of the misuse of a credit card 3. the much wider investigation, if it is to go ahead, into the broader governance of the council for the past seven years, going well beyond credit cards.
At this point, the mere fact that these first two investigations are underway and the third is a possibility is an extraordinary victory for the people of Warrnambool who want their faith restored in the WCC.