Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Why on earth is the Warrnambool City Council persisting with its decision to whack dozens of pet owners with $330 fines for failing to re-register their pets on time?

What possible justification can there be for demanding such an exorbitant fine – the maximum set by the state – even once the owner has paid the overdue bill?

One answer might be simple bloody mindedness and greed.

The council won’t talk about it, but I believe more than 250 pet owners – most of them dog owners because they are the easiest to catch – have been hit with these extraordinary fines and final demands for payment or the threat of court action.

If you do the math, this is around $82,000 the council stands to make in fines.

Those facing fines include the most vulnerable, including pensioners where the fine is almost 10 times the cost of the registration.

 

And pensioners have been hit.

As have new parents, and those who simply forgot, or those who were pre-occupied with other things in life and, of course, a few who decided they didn’t want to be fleeced $70 for having done the right thing and registered their pet in the first place.

Because this fine is not for failing to register your pet, but for failing to re-register it.

And bad luck if you have done the right thing for each of the past 10 years, sorry, that doesn’t count.

The cost of pet registrations shot up this year because of a lop-sided and extremely expensive contract with the RSPCA to run the animal shelter.

Warrnambool’s pet regos are now the second most expensive in Australia for a desexed pet.

So it doesn’t matter if you have desexed your pet, microchipped and registered it, if you failed to pay your rego on time, the $330 hammer will fall.

It is completely over the top and, worse, it is random.

Some people have been lucky enough to plead their case successfully and had the fine wiped.

Others, who have equally compelling circumstances, have been told, sorry, mate, your lucky day is not today.

This is not how to treat a community.

If the council wonders why people are so angry, this is it – this heavy handed, bloody mindedness that comes on top of a 4.5% rate rise which nobody wants or deserves.

 

There are options.

One is to do what Melbourne City Council does – that little town further east of us – and offer a late penalty of $15. That’s right, $15. See the snapshot for the MCC website below:

Perhaps, like what happens with your gas, and electricity, and rates, this late penalty could increase each month until you make payment.

(I have paid overdue power bills before and never has it cost me $330 in fines.)

The other thing the council could do, right now, is offer an amnesty.

Call a truce, wipe the slate clean and give people a chance – not only those who have already done the right thing and re-registered their pet, but those who haven’t.

It is the latter group that need the most incentive to sign on.

 

Drop the $330 fines. Encourage everyone to register their pet by making it affordable, if not free, for the rest of this year.

Introduce a $15 late penalty when re-registrations are due next year.

Throw in some free doggy bags, a leash, or a cat collar for those who pay on time.

In other words, create incentives to make the RSPCA less busy, not more.

As it stands, not only will the RSPCA be busy, but so will the Magistrates’ Court, where all 250-plus pet owners who have paid their rego but still been fined, could choose to challenge the point of it all. I reckon they have a good case.

And how would the WCC make up the shortfall from all of those juicy, $330, money-for-jam fines?

Well, here’s just one idea: look at the photo below.

That’s right, four racehorses in a row, who were barrelling along Lady Bay foreshore a couple of weeks ago, in breach of the rules, yet again (#notalltrainers).

Do you know how many fines have been issued to the Warrnambool Racing Club by the WCC despite multiple breaches of the rules since 2016?

None.

Zero.

Nada.

So there is one rule for the pet owners of Warrnambool and another for racehorses which, I think we could safely argue, are far more of a risk to public safety than Pixie the poodle hanging out on the couch.

I asked Barry the Bull Terrier Boolshite detector what he thought of all this.

Barry gave it a perfect 10.

 

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Isn’t it astonishing that our elected councillors, while pushing for a rate hike, knew nothing about the thousands of dollars being racked up on Warrnambool City Council corporate credit cards for meals, alcohol, travel, accommodation and coffees?

They apparently had no idea. None.

I don’t think our councillors even knew that the council has 81 corporate credit cards floating around – one for every four, full-time equivalent staffers.

And worse, when it was discovered that at least one of these cards was being used to buy excessive amounts of booze, and car washes, and unauthorised dinners, they didn’t know about that either.

No idea. None. Nobody told them.

(I am still waiting for a formal statement on behalf of all councillors from Mayor Tony Herbert on the simple question of who was told what and when. Hopefully I can run it in full tomorrow.)

We now know that more than one card was being used in this way, thanks to my asking questions, sources who have a strong moral compass, and documents released through Freedom of Information that I lodged on 30 October last year.

And yet the very councillors who agreed to jack up our rates by 4.5% for the next two years didn’t know a thing about it, and nobody bothered to ask.

Even the Audit and Risk Committee, which includes Cr Sue Cassidy and Cr Michael Neoh, didn’t know.

According to a statement from Crs Neoh and Cassidy, the committee only gets notified if there is suspicion of fraud. Well, guess what…..

If this is what passes for scrutiny of ratepayers’ money at a time when every dollar counts, we are being ripped off and no wonder – no wonder – the big party going on behind the scenes in some quarters of council went unreported for so long.

 

Which brings me to a new feature in The Terrier – the Big Barry Boolshite detector.

Big Barry is a Bull Terrier and he can sniff out Boolshite at 100 paces, so tonight I am unleashing him for the first time and I am sure it will not be the last.

I gave Big Barry a sniff of the council’s claim that it, miraculously, discovered Mr McMahon’s over-the-top credit card spending in September, just a few weeks before I lodged my FOI on 30 October.

Big Barry’s meter went into the red zone! Bool-shite detected!

Because I have since sifted through my emails to council, and I discovered that I first asked about their credit cards on, wait for it, 20 September last year!

Why did I ask them? Because journalists in South Australia and Tasmania were exposing credit card rorts within councils.

 

Such was the flurry of excitement within council about my questions, it put a whole response on its website, buried where nobody would find it, a week later on 27 September last year.

And then on 30 October I lodged my FOI on Mr McMahon’s spending, having received a tip off about a big booze up that went onto the corporate card and was paid for by you, me and Barry via his exorbitant dog rego fee.

And coincidentally, a few days later in early November, former CEO Bruce Anson sits down with Mr McMahon and sorts out how much Mr McMahon needs to repay.

(Barry, Barry, calm down…it’s okay, we all know its Boolshite).

A big slab of what Mr McMahon had to repay – $1600 worth – was for a big knees up at the Cape Schanck resort in July where Cr Tony Herbert and Cr David Owen were among the council representatives.

Despite being there, at Cape Schanck, Crs Herbert and Owen apparently saw nothing untoward that made them think, “hang on, who is paying for all this?”

And this is why we have lost faith and heart and trust in the very systems and people that should be protecting us from being exploited.

The new CEO Peter Schneider is holding his internal review, all of the 81 credit cards are now being checked – at long last – but, sorry, for those of us now paying higher rates and fees, it is all too little, too late.

Our local MP Roma Britnell is the only one in authority who, so far, has had the spine to take this straight to the top. Straight to the Local Government Minister, Adem Somyurek, who has been swift to act on the rubbish going on down in Gippsland at South Gippsland Shire.

The Minister put administrators in to clean out the joint.

I agree with Roma’s call for a full independent inquiry and so does Barry and I bet you do too.

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