Serious privacy breach at WCC needs full investigation
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
As the count goes on to decide who will sit alongside frontrunner Vicki Jellie on the new Warrnambool City Council, we must remember that there is important, unfinished business from the last go round.
The first is whether the WCC has referred a crime to the police – the abuse and misuse of a council corporate credit card.
The latest statement from Acting CEO Vikki King is “at this stage there is no update in relation to the referral of the credit card findings to the Warrnambool Police”.
A former senior council manager lied and covered up his spending on a council credit card and yet, four weeks on from this confirmation, the council is apparently no further forward on pursuing any criminal charges.
For a council that allegedly couldn’t wait to throw a CEO out the door for pressing pause on a fishing pontoon, this is disturbing.
And for our local paper to argue that the stolen money was “paid back”…if only such justice was served to the poor bastards thrown into court for pinching a packet of chops.
Just as disturbing is the second item of unfinished business: the leaking of highly sensitive, highly personal documents from within council to at least two councillors, in the mail.
Three sworn affidavits from Tony Herbert, Sue Cassidy and Kylie Gaston all revealed that psychometric test results for those who applied for the position of CEO were leaked.
Senior council staff have known about this leak since at least April this year, when Robert Anderson asked for an investigation.
Has it been investigated? Did it turn the joint upside down? Did it run a full IT audit to see who had access to these highly personal documents? (I would guess, not many people.)
Has it contacted the Inspectorate or the anti-corruption body IBAC?
We don’t know, because the Acting CEO – as of today – has declined to comment.
“It would be inappropriate to comment on matters currently before the Supreme Court,” is the statement.
But this leak is not being challenged in the Supreme Court. It happened. And nothing, it seems, has been done to track down the person/s responsible.
As it happens, IBAC just today issued a newsletter on this very topic of misuse of private and personal information held by councils.
IBAC warns that such misuse “may constitute corrupt conduct”.
There is that c word again.
I am as invigorated as you are by the wave of change that is poised to roll through our council and the above just underscores – yet again – why such a change can’t come soon enough.
Cr Gaston on credit card abuse: “This is a blip. It will pass.”
A leaked email from former mayor Cr Kylie Gaston to her fellow councillors gives a fascinating insight into her thoughts on the WCC credit card scandal. Image: WCC/Twitter.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Every now and then something slips out of Warrnambool City Council and we catch a glimpse of what really goes on.
This is when we learn what councillors really think, unplugged and unfiltered – this is one of those times.
The words of one councillor, former mayor Kylie Gaston, recently leaked through the solid wall of control via an email and I must admit that it made my jaw drop.
Cr Gaston didn’t expect these words to escape and she was not happy about it, but the non-confidential email she wrote to her fellow councillors (except Cr Peter Hulin) has crept through a crack and run free.
The email was sent by Cr Gaston the night before the September 2 council meeting at which councillors were still battling the raw flames of the credit card scandal and desperately trying to regain public trust.
Cr Gaston did not like this move at all and she told her fellow councillors as much, while at the same time revealing what she really thought about the whole issue.
Here is her email from 1 September in full:
“Hi everyone,
I am only writing this email to councillors, not including Peter Hulin as he is putting the motion forward.
I will be blunt.
This is a political notice of motion. Who is going to second it? Why second it when it is only going to add to the political fire, no matter what the outcome.
I think we all believe, as Thommo said, this is an iceblock not an iceberg. If the Standard reporters are working this out, why would we fuel the fire?
Let the motion lapse. Let the gallery yell at us. And let’s get on with what we are elected to do without unnecessary cost to ratepayers.
This is a blip. It will pass. We need to focus on our values and keep moving our city forward.
Kylie.
Did a word leap off the page for you? A tiny word that says so much: “blip”.
A blip.
We are talking here about the blatant misuse, abuse and unjustifiable spending of ratepayers’ money by senior council staff and a potential cover-up, all of which is now the subject of three inquiries.
I can’t un-see that word, “blip”, despite Cr Gaston’s explanation, which I have also published in full below.
And then there is this zinger: “let the gallery yell at us”, which is exactly what they did, and some paid the price for it.
Cr Gaston expected a rowdy meeting, but now anyone who shouts at meetings in the future could be fined.
In this email we also learn Cr Gaston looked to the Warrnambool Standard to gauge whether credit card abuse was a problem for the council.
If the sole newspaper wasn’t worried, why should councillors be?
Good grief.
And, lastly, it shows Cr Gaston, who is an experienced councillor, trying to line up councillors like ducks in a row, rather than free-thinking individuals.
So this is how it works when we aren’t watching. How fascinating.
I asked Cr Gaston a number of questions about this email and this is her response in full:
Hi Carol,
I will certainly be interested to see how you frame my response.
I believe the NOM (notice of motion) was political rather than useful and wanted to clarify that with my fellow Councillors and not make it personal with Peter Hulin.
This has certainly been a distressing and unfortunate episode at Council. Personally I am disgusted with the inappropriate use of monies and I believe most people are honest.
We need to learn from it and move on. I did not intend the word blip to imply something small but rather in the history of Council this is an unfortunate episode which we need to deal with responsibly and I believe we had already put appropriate actions in place.
At the time of the Council meeting the Ombudsman was involved and two weeks prior, Council had called a Special Meeting to appoint an external and independent auditor. The scope will certainly include a review of our corporate governance and how we arrived at this point.
As it stands, the Minister is waiting the outcome of the Ombudsman report, so in fact the Notice of Motion achieved no more than what is already happening.
There is not much more to it than that.
Kind regards,
Kylie
I ran this response past Barry the Bullshite Detector. He gave it a 9/10, saying it contained more spin than a whirling dervish dance party.
Last Thursday, I asked Cr Gaston a follow-up question on why she was so confident this whole issue was an “iceblock”, after all, the official inquiries had only just begun.
Her answer arrived a few hours ago:
“In my view, the subject of further investigation had been dealt with at the special meeting and the (motion) was not going to add value.
What it was going to achieve was keeping the issue burning (so to speak) in the public domain when we had already dealt with it.
Bringing in the minister was only going to be political and, as it eventuated, the minister did indeed say it was already being investigated.
At this point I’ll wait to see if there is any further information of which we are unaware.
I don’t believe corruption is systemic at WCC and through transparent external investigation we will review our policies to ensure this does not happen again.
There are always some people who will try exploit systems for their own gain, I detest this, however, I believe most people are honest and our staff are hard working and trying to do the right thing.”
Nobody has ever suggested corruption is systemic at the WCC, but boy, wouldn’t you want to turn over all the rocks to see what might crawl out?
That is how to restore public confidence, bit by bit, and without a “blip” in sight.
If you like the work of The Terrier, please consider throwing something in the tip jar.
We heard it was coming and it has arrived – the clamping down of councillors being able to speak freely to the media and a whopping fine if they leak what a council considers confidential information.
Tomorrow night (July 4) the Warrnambool City Council will use a special meeting to vote on a new code of conduct that, among a raft of other things, demands that councillors tell the communications manager, Nick Higgins, if they talk to a journalist.
It also includes a provision to fine councillors $18,200.40 (!!) – or charge them with serious misconduct – if they leak confidential information to a journalist, or anybody else for that matter. This change is one that had been recommended for councils across Victoria under changes to the Local Government Act.
In another change under the Act, all councillors must sign the code of conduct if they wish to remain on council.
The changes to the Act make no secret, pardon the pun, that they are intended to improve accountability and “standards of behaviour” which is another way of saying that “rogue” councillors will be dragged further into line.
I am not in favour of councillors running amok, but this clamping down comes as more and more information is kept from the public, or carefully massaged by council media units before release, and will only make it even harder for journalists to tell you what is really going on.
In fact, at the time of writing, if you try and find the agenda for tomorrow night’s special meeting on the council’s website, it is not there. Nor is a copy of the draft Code of Conduct so that we can see what the councillors are being asked to consider.
More importantly, as we have already written, there has been a string of critical information that has been considered “confidential” by the council that surely should be in the public domain.
The exact salary package of WCC chief executive Bruce Anson is one of the many items considered confidential. Image: ABC.
All of the stories we have written about these issues have relied on sources, leaks and Freedom of Information applications – the bread and butter of any good journalism, but also becoming the only way to find out even the most basic of information (eg. how much is council CEO Bruce Anson actually paid?)
You may recall that the internal panic about leaks from Warrnambool City Council came to a head after the leaking of documents to The Ageabout the expansion of Midfield Meats and the political connections of boss Colin McKenna.
That saga led to an investigation and public shaming of three councillors that, locally, generated more heat than the vastly more important story about links between Mr McKenna and then Premier Denis Napthine.
It also led to this latest move to stop councillors from saying anything to journalists without the council’s media adviser knowing about it.
You have to ask – who is this policy designed to benefit?
Only those who want to keep you, the ratepayer, in the dark about the potentially controversial, embarrassing or debatable decisions that are made behind closed doors.
As a wise person once said: “news is what somebody, somewhere doesn’t want you to know. The rest is advertising”.
Analysis – Carol Altmann
