Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Welcome to Terrier 2020!

This is going to be a huge year, not least because council elections will be held in October and we have a chance to clear the decks at the Warrnambool City Council and start afresh.

And, boy, do we need to start afresh, because the great hope of a new, visionary, united and transparent council after the 2016 election has fallen apart.

We were dudded.

All of those promises on glossy election leaflets and what did we get from our elected councillors? We got a big, fat rate rise above the cap.

And this rate rise of 4.5 per cent was not just for one year, but two, making our average rates ($1920) higher than those in suburban Melbourne (eg $1727 in City of Yarra). I would not be surprised if this year’s rate rise is deferred, after all, it is an election year and it will be all spin and good news stories from here.

But this disgraceful management of our city’s finances is the first of at least 20 good reasons why we need to start over in 2020.

Here are another 19:

1. No councillors questioning why the council had 81 corporate credit cards and how these were used.

2. The inappropriate spending on these cards, including the now infamous Cape Schanck event attended by Cr Tony Herbert and Cr David Owen, and the $700 dinner for four people, including Cr Sue Cassidy and City Growth manager Andrew Paton, at the Myrtle Bar & Grill. Unbelievable.

3. Cr Herbert, as Mayor, failing to tell his fellow councillors about the thousands of dollars in inappropriate credit card spending repaid by former council tourism head, David McMahon, and Cr Kylie Gaston describing the entire credit card scandal as a “blip” that would pass.

4. Cr Gaston and Cr Michael Neoh using the council as a springboard for their political ambitions, sending a clear signal that they would rather be in Spring St than Liebig St. Will they run for council yet again? Probably.

5. Councillors denigrating ratepayers, residents and journalists for daring to ask questions and for refusing to sit down and shut up.

6. The ugly, personal power plays of Crs Herbert and Cassidy over who would be mayor, including Cr Herbert dropping the c-bomb. Classy.

7. The astronomical increase in pet registrations, making them the second highest in Australia, and fining hundreds of dog owners in what became a P/R disaster.

8. The cost of parking and parking fines in the CBD which might bolster revenue, but is killing local traders by a thousand cuts.

9. A $3 million blowout on the Liebig St upgrade, and excessive spending on roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and toilet blocks.

10. The first sod of the Reid Oval redevelopment has not been turned, yet small sporting clubs like East Warrnambool Football and Netball Club are already being shafted. This comes on top of clubs paying a 100 per cent increase in WCC sports ground hiring fees. Meanwhile South West Sport, of which Cr Neoh is CEO, pays no rent for a council-owned property at 34 Koroit St and South West Sport will eventually have a brand new office at Reid Oval. Fair?

11. Whistleblowers within the council being investigated and threatened with disciplinary action.

12. Bending over backwards to accommodate the racing industry and particularly disgraced racehorse trainer Darren Weir by turning our beaches and Albert Park into full-on training facilities.

13. Flagstaff Hill remains a running financial sore, with no clear, public plan for its long-term future.

14. Some council staff living in subsidised, council-owned properties, including one on a verbal agreement only for more than 30 years.

15. The council ignored its survey of 700 people which found most did not want a rate rise. By contrast, an Ipsos survey of 52 people* which declared Warrnambool the most liveable city has become a council mantra.

16. A mural by a convicted paedophile remains covered up at the Lighthouse Theatre, rather than removed, despite the full horror of child sexual abuse in Warrnambool now coming to light.

17. The continuation of the boys’ club mentality within council that allowed bullying to go unchecked, credit cards to be misused and good staff worn down to the point of quitting.

18. A botched attempt to charge local market stallholders $600 a year after complaints from permanent traders yet, this summer, Cr Neoh set up a pop-up restaurant right next to permanent traders.

19. And last but not least, a council that declares itself clean and green, yet still sprays glysophate/Roundup around Lake Pertobe; wants to allow racehorse training where hooded plovers nest; wants to fly across the world to Sweden to talk about hydrogen; and attempted to cut down 115-year-old Moreton Bay figs.

 

I am sure each of you could add more, but the point is we deserve so much better and we can demand it.

We want community leaders who have the community at heart – not people installed for their own self-interest, or by a particular interest group.

We don’t want more slogans and spin – we want honest answers to our questions and a bold, realistic, sustainable plan for our city.

Above all, we want an end to the waste of ratepayer and taxpayer money.

This is the year we can make a change – we can do it – and campaign 2020 starts now.

[*Ipsos interviewed 9515 people nationally for its survey. Of these, 52 were from south-west Victoria, which was defined as an area east of Colac, up to Casterton and across to the SA border. The majority of these 52 ranked the south-west highly on various liveability measures.]

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Analysis – Carol Altmann

How extraordinarily healing and beautiful something like this work by local artist Jenny Altmann would have looked at the Lighthouse Theatre instead of a Rolf Harris mural covered in black Perspex, apparently forever.

Imagine if an artist like Jenny (disclosure: my former sister-in-law), whose art often deals with themes of healing from sexual abuse, had been asked to replace what has become an embarrassment for our city?

Warrnambool City Council, on our behalf, would have made headlines around Australia for its courage in grasping a rare opportunity to send a symbolic message to all survivors of sexual assault that we, as a community, will stand with you over and above any cult of personality.

Such a message would be particularly powerful given Warrnambool has more than double the state average rate of child abuse: 16.5/1000 compared to 7/1000.

But last Monday night we blew it and we deserve headlines like this one.

For all of the bluster about censorship, separating the art from the artist, and fears of replacing the mural being the “the thin-edge-of-the-wedge”, the decision really boiled down to one of celebrity.

The only reason the mural is remaining is because it was painted by Rolf Harris – who is actually better known for his entertainment than his art – but nobody has had the courage to say it.

This was not about preserving all art at all costs.

In fact, less than two hours after deciding to keep the mural, the council was praising its spectacular upgrade of the Lake Pertobe maze, where old murals (painted by children?) were replaced by the works of street artists.

Unfortunately these children were not as famous as Rolf Harris.

And, as I have already written, local indigenous artist Fiona Clarke saw her mural at the Ozone carpark removed to make way for apartments, and nobody blinked an eye.

Unfortunately Fiona is not as famous as Rolf Harris.

In the art world and beyond, murals come and murals go and the Sheffield Council in the UK had no qualms – after Harris’s conviction on 12 counts of sexual assault – about painting over one of his murals on the side of the Sheffield Archives building.

An even earlier Harris mural, at the Sheffield swimming pool, had already been lost when the pool was demolished.

Removing a mural does not erase Harris’s crimes or stop sexual assault, but it is a symbolic gesture that sexual predators deserve nothing more than our disgust for the ruin they can inflict on their innocent victims.

Many of the people who wanted to see the Harris mural replaced are survivors, but to “out” yourself as a survivor in a regional city is enormously difficult because, often, the shame is still there and, in many cases, the perpetrator (even the dead ones) still garners respect.

I thought that the majority of our councillors absolutely understood this and, indeed, Cr Jacinta Ermacora (who earlier worked as a social worker at the South West Centre Against Sexual Assault) lifted my spirits when she told the council meeting that:

“One of the hardest things for survivors is to see their abusers continue their life in the community, unaffected, still respected in their community and sometimes even community leaders, while they, and their children, suffer and survive in confidential silence.”

I felt like leaping out of my chair and applauding.

But just as it appeared as if Cr Ermacora was about to crush the reputation of people like Harris hard under her heel, she went on to argue for all the reasons that the mural should remain, including that its future was irrelevant to the bigger picture of preventing sexual assault.

And then this:

“I don’t believe we should indulge in an angry, lynching squad armed with paint rollers, because that says more about ourselves than it does to our sensitivity and acknowledgement toward local survivors,” she said.

I have always admired Cr Ermacora as a strong woman who has achieved great heights in local government, but I still cannot understand where this attack was coming from, particularly when many members of of this metaphorical “lynching squad” were survivors.

Crs Sycopoulis, Gaston and Neoh have been equally as disappointing, falling somewhere between respecting survivors, not wanting to “destroy” art and finding a compromise that appears to have cheered no-one.

Only Crs Peter Hulin and Brian Kelson argued for removal and so the mural will remain, under black Perspex, for time immemorial, although I doubt anybody really believes that.

If this was really a victory for art, why is nobody celebrating?