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[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]http://the-terrier.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/vault3.jpg[/author_image]Welcome to The Vault – this is where Bluestone will place all sorts of subscriber-access-only material. If you have something you would like to submit, please email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au[author_info][/author_info] [/author]

By Carol Altmann

[box]Bluestone would like to acknowledge subscriber PT for funding the Freedom of Information application used for this piece.[/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] B[/dropcap]luestone subscribers will know that we cop quite a lot of flak for continuing to ask questions about the sacred cows of Warrnambool including Flagstaff Hill, Fun4Kids and the increasing secrecy and lack of transparency around how the Warrnambool City Council runs its affairs – but as long as there are huge gaps in the information, we will keep asking.

Like why is there no formal report on the 2015 Fun4Kids Festival that cost ratepayers $450,000 to run?

Bluestone has just uncovered this fact and it is staggering, irrespective of your views on Fun4Kids or whether it has picked up tourism gongs.

Anyone who has ever dealt with public funds will know that full disclosure on how that public money was spent and the results of that spending is standard procedure.

It’s called accountability.

Indeed I remember when working for the might of News Ltd that we were expected to account for every dollar we claimed when working on a story, right down to producing a receipt for a $10.50 pizza – after all, Rupert might be a very wealthy man, but he was still the boss.

Yet the Warrnambool City Council has spent almost half a million dollars of public money on an event that, until now, has always produced a full report on its budget and the festival results.

When we asked the council media manager for a copy of the 2015 Fun4Kids report, he said the key results of the festival had already been released to the media.

So, what was told to the media via the council’s media unit should be enough.

Well some journalists in Warrnambool might be happy to swallow the pre-chewed lines delivered by the council, but Bluestone is compelled to dive deeper.

So when the council told us that “about 15,000” people attended the 2015 festival and that 24% of these were from Melbourne and that they surveyed 1000 of these patrons for their views, we wanted to know more.

Can we have the full report? We asked.

Nothing was forthcoming, so we lodged a Freedom of Information asking for two things:

i) the report and/or documents prepared for the council relating to the financial results of the 2015 Fun4Kids festival

ii) the report and/or documents prepared for the council relating to the patronage, including any breakdowns or analysis on these figures.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A[/dropcap]fter the obligatory 45-day wait, the council’s Freedom of Information officer Wendy Clark, who is also chief executive officer Bruce Anson’s personal assistant, came back with this jaw-dropping response:

“I have found no documents that meet the terms of your request…”

This means, we must assume, that there were no reports prepared for the council.

Ms Clark then attached two documents that, we must also assume, amount to the full documentation available on the results of Fun4Kids 2015.

One was a single budget line reference and the other was five paragraphs that included not one single figure, but plenty of motherhood statements like:

“The Fun4Kids Festival achieved a positive percentage increase in the metropolitan market, while maintaining regional attendances. This outcome is a key growth strategy for the festival moving forward.”

I don’t know about you, but whenever I read those last two words – “moving forward” – I know we are deep in the river of public relations spin and far from the shores of plain speaking.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I[/dropcap]n a similar vein, you may remember the uproar that followed the sudden removal of a row of old tea tree along Pertobe Rd just before Christmas.

The trees were removed, we were told, after an arborist inspected them and found them to be unsafe due to infestation by a certain worm and cracking.

A Bluestone reader dared to ask more. In early January, she asked for a copy of the arborist’s report (or at least more detail) and whether the trees would be replaced.

She is still waiting for a reply, let alone any more information.

Such queries could normally be thrashed out  by elected councillors in general council business, but that, as we know, has been abolished and now councillors are timed for how long they talk, even though meetings were usually over within a couple of hours.

All councillors, not just some, should be demanding more, not less, transparency on behalf of ratepayers.

The fact they aren’t, and that this sort of “trust us” mentality is gripping the council, is of serious concern to anyone who remembers that it is the ratepayers who, just like Rupert, are the boss.

Find more in The Vault here…

 

Trees, transparency and the truth

Wilma Wright, FOI and more

The big shed schemozzle: we follow the money

…and more

Something very troubling is happening in our community when it comes to the local media’s scrutiny of those in power.

Since returning to Warrnambool in January, I have watched with growing disbelief at the apparent reticence of our once-proud local newspaper, The Standard, to go in hard and ask the tough questions of our leaders.

This is what journalists do. This is the role of the so-called ‘Fourth Estate’ – to be the watchdog of the powerful and give voice to the powerless.

It is an essential part of our democracy and ensures that we retain an open, transparent and accountable government – on all levels.

This past week, we saw national scrutiny of MPs’ spending, sparked by revelations that Prime Minister Abbott had claimed allowances for trips to weddings, triathlons and cycling events.

Was our local federal MP Dan Tehan asked by our paper to detail the $873,992.35 that he spent from 2010-12? No, instead this figure was not even mentioned, but rather the paper’s story (10/10) reassured us that he had claimed $321,000 in ‘legitimate government entitlements’. End of story.

There is no suggestion that Mr Tehan used his allowance improperly, but nor is it improper for a journalist to forensically examine this spending. This is exactly what independent journalist Margot Kingston did when she broke the story about Tony Abbott claiming more than $9000 in taxpayer funds to promote his book.

It is only by drilling down into the detail that all the facts can come to light.

Earlier this year, Warrnambool Mayor Michael Neoh visited China as part of a Sister City relationship with Changchun. Shortly after his return, The Standard ran a story (29/6) about Mr Neoh visiting his ancestral home in China and catching up with relatives.

Was this part of the official tour for which ratepayers paid $3500 for both Mr Neoh and Council CEO Bruce Anson?

Did Mr Neoh pay for this portion of the trip himself? Again, there is no suggestion of impropriety by Mr Neoh, but we don’t know the answer to these questions because, it appears, they weren’t asked.*

And when others do ask the prickly, difficult questions, the response is sometimes extraordinary.

Last month, Cr Peter Sycopoulis and several council colleagues questioned whether Mayor Neoh and Mr Anson needed to attend a Sister City function in Japan – expected to cost ratepayers $4000 – given they had just been to China.

For this, the councillors were chastised by the newspaper as being ‘party poopers’ (11/11). What?

And let’s not forget the infamous ‘Wilma Wright’ letters to the editor. These were published by The Standard for four years – four years – without anybody apparently checking the identity of the author, who was revealed as Mr Anson’s son and who at one point used the cover of his pseudonym to openly attack several councillors, including Cr Sycopoulis, in the lead up to a council election.

(Mr Anson, it must be noted, was cleared of any involvement in his son’s activities).

The names in this column – Mr Tehan, Mayor Neoh, Mr Anson – are irrelevant: it is the public, important positions that they hold that makes them open to scrutiny and a higher standard of accountability.

This is the hard work of journalism.

It is much harder, more time consuming and nerve-wrecking than writing story after story about courts and crime (ie. the powerless) where all of the leg work has been done, yet it is critical if we are to have faith in our media as the watchdog it is intended to be.

If it fails in this task, it is nothing less than our democracy which suffers.

*  The Warrnambool City Council has since confirmed to Bluestone that Mayor Neoh did fund this portion of his travel.

Disclosures:

• I began my journalism career as a cadet at The Standard in 1989.
• I was an open supporter of ALP candidate Michael Barling during the last federal election because I thought he was the best option for Wannon. It was the first time I voted Labor in many years: I normally vote Green.
• I know Cr Sycopoulis through his family: his older sisters and I went to school together.