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.

As part of rebuilding this trust, Cr Hulin wanted the council to ask the Local Government Minister for a full review into all council spending for the past seven years, provided it wouldn’t cost ratepayers any more money.

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.

Terrier Tip Jar

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

It has taken a while, but I finally have an official response from Mayor Tony Herbert as to when councillors were told about thousands of dollars worth of unauthorised spending on a Warrnambool City Council corporate credit card.

And, thanks to a growing tribe of trusty terriers, I can also tell you more about thousands of dollars spent by the council for accommodation at Flemington, including a Saturday when the races were on.

First to the Mayor.

Cr Herbert’s statement is in full below, but the short answer is Cr Herbert was the only councillor told by former council CEO Bruce Anson about the credit card misuse.

The briefing happened in November, shortly after Cr Herbert was elected Mayor, and after the errant spending by a former senior manager, David McMahon, was apparently picked up by finance staff in September.

The council’s Audit and Risk Committee wasn’t told.

The then-mayor Cr Robert Anderson wasn’t told.

None of the other councillors were told, and I believe at least one found out about the rort when it was exposed by The Terrier two weeks ago.

Remember, councillors are there to represent us and the CEO answers to them, not the other way around.

 

As we know, the council holds briefings with councillors all the time. It’s where all the good stuff happens: the real discussion, debates and arm wrestles that used to happen in open council meetings that stretched on until midnight.

It’s also where confidential issues are raised.

But for some reason, our elected representatives –  other than one – were not told of a major financial breach by one of the council’s senior managers who, at that point, had been asked to pay back more than $4000 and I believe up to $6000.

If I had not lodged an FOI in October last year, none of us would know a thing about any of this and Mr McMahon would still be in his highly paid job.

And if we hadn’t, between us, blown this thing right open, the fresh investigation into Mr McMahon’s spending and the use of all 81 corporate credit cards would not be happening.

That is how things were allowed to operate within certain circles at council for years.

Even now, we are still not allowed to know who within council has a credit card, the spending limits, and the value to ratepayers, such as what tangible results or reports we see from the thousands of dollars spent on numerous conferences.

Thanks to the terriers out there, however, we can find out more than what the council officially tells us.

For example, through Freedom of Information I learned that more than $3500 was spent on sending up to six council staff to Flemington Quest for four days in July 2017.

Even though we paid for it, the council has refused to answer questions about this event, including why the accommodation included a Saturday and a Sunday night for at least one person, if not two.

It turns out – thankyou terriers – that the Flemington Quest is next to the Flemington racecourse which hosted the 2017 Victorian Tourism conference on the Monday and Tuesday, 24-25 July.

So perhaps the council sent six people, including two senior managers, to the conference. (It sent seven people to the same conference last year – site of the infamous Cape Schanck booze up.)

But wait, there’s more. There always is.

It also turns out – thankyou again tenacious terriers – that Flemington was also hosting a major racing event, Recognition Race Day, on Saturday 22 July 2017. Trainers Darren Weir and Jarrod McLean had horses running.

So, did some council staff arrive on the Saturday so they could go to the races?

I am a hopeless punter, but in the absence of any other explanation from the council spokesman, I bet they did. 

As we know, this whole issue is not just about unauthorised credit card use, but also spending which was considered – for years – to be perfectly okay. 

 

To get to the bottom of it, we will keep peeling back the layers. There is so much more to come.

In the meantime, here is Cr Herbert’s statement in full:

“I am responding to your question about the exact date of notification.

If you would like to support the work of the The Terrier, you can  always throw something into the tip jar.

Terrier Tip Jar

By Carol Altmann

Like him or dislike him, long-serving Warrnambool City Councillor Peter Hulin exposed a simmering issue inside council this week when he spoke out on the “bullying by exclusion” that has kept him from ever being chosen as mayor.

As Cr Hulin told Standard reporter Rachael Houlihan, he didn’t even bother to run for mayor this time around because he knew he didn’t have the numbers on council, and he was right. He also no longer sits on even one council committee, having been excluded from those too.

Cr Tony Herbert, who was selected as mayor on Monday and who chairs not one but two council committees, was in the box seat for the mayoralty all along and Cr Sue Cassidy will get her chance next year.

Because as we now know, Warrnambool no longer selects its mayors based on years served, or council experience, or even popularity among the voters.

If it cared about experience, Cr Robert Anderson would not have been chosen last year, his first year on council, over Cr Hulin who has now served 10 years.

And if it came down to the will of the people, Cr Hulin would have had a turn by now too.

In 2008, when he first joined council, Cr Hulin polled 2078 first preference votes – second only to Cr Rob Askew on 2260 and well ahead of Crs Mike Neoh (1578) and Jacinta Ermacora (1348).

Both Crs Neoh and Ermacora (who is no longer on council) have been mayor.

The second time he came up for election, in 2012, Cr Hulin scored 2250 first preference votes, almost double that of newcomer Kylie Gaston on 1210. Cr Gaston went on to be mayor too.

And at the last council election, in 2016, Cr Hulin came in fifth but was still the preferred first choice of 1519 voters, which was a higher first preference vote than Cr David Owen (1206) and not far from Cr Gaston (1800). The two candidates elected behind Cr Hulin were, wait for it, Cr Tony Herbert (1456) and Cr Robert Anderson (1058).

Despite being in their first term as councillors, Cr Anderson and Herbert have now both been mayor too.

Cr Hulin has every right to feel angry, but so do the people who voted for him – consistently – election after election, since 2008.

These voters clearly want his voice in the mix, they want him to have the same opportunities as his other council colleagues and they believe he has something to contribute.

For the other councillors, aided and abetted by powerful forces within the council itself, to continually exclude Cr Hulin from the spheres of influence because he doesn’t fit with their particular style or agenda, is to take a gouge out of democracy.

It is also basically a big “stuff you” to those who vote for him.

Being mayor of a city the size of Warrnambool is no longer about ribbon cutting and wearing a big robe with a big medallion, although I think Cr Anderson thought it was because, with all due respects to him, he was unremarkable as a mayor.

It is now a job with a $70,000-plus a year allowance that relies on a mayor being able to promote the city, lobby for the city, ask questions of the city and put the city’s best interests first.

There are many things I disagree on with Cr Hulin – his support for racehorse training at Levy’s Beach and looking at enclosing the harbour are just two of them – but there is little doubt he has a passion for Warrnambool.

He also asks tough, detailed questions, and surely that sort of inquiry – too often dismissed as being “negative” – is just what we need to keep our council accountable?

Cr Hulin could be a disappointment as mayor. He may stand up in public and make bad jokes about FIGJAM, who knows? But to be excluded from ever having the opportunity to spend even 12 months in the role sends a chilling message that unless you play a certain way, you will be frozen out, and that should be of concern to all of us.

If you would like to keep seeing more pieces like this about local issues, please make a small contribution below.

Donate