Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Welcome to The Terrier Sunday Night Tidbits in easy-to-digest, meaty morsels:

1. Shelly beach is less stinky: the indefatigable Colleen Hughson and the whole Good Will Nurdle Hunting and Pick Up Sticks crew are reporting that the rockpools at Shelly Beach, near Thunder Point, are cleaner than they have been in years since another fine mesh screen was installed at the Wannon Water treatment plant in February.

I had almost forgotten what a crystal clear rockpool at Shelly Beach looked like, but things are set to get even better.

A fourth, fully automated, $1.1 million screen made in the US is being installed at the plant by Wannon Water as we speak.

By automated, I mean it is the first screen that will clean itself without having to be physically taken out and cleaned by WW staff, which must be a shitty job, to say the least.

If the rockpools are looking good now, hopefully they will soon be sparkling permanently.

A big, non-algae blooming bouquet to everyone involved in making this happen. I will write more about this whole water pollution saga soon.

2. Big fat rate rise on hold: The W’bool City Council has decided, because we are in very tough times, against raising rates by 4.5% again this year, which it was allowed to do after getting approval last year to break the rate cap for two years in a row.

This means rates will go up by 2%.

But before we stand and cheer, the rate pain is not over yet.

The council is still very keen to slap that 4.5% rise into place next year because, it says, it still needs the money to fix its assets.

From what I am reading, it’s going to take a couple of years at least for most businesses to get back on their feet after the crush of C19.

We have said this many times before, but surely more savings have to come from within rather than jacking up rates by 4.5% at a time when ratepayers will still be doing it very, very tough.

3. Borrowing more big bucks: Speaking of which, I see in the agenda for tomorrow night’s council meeting that the WCC plans to borrow $3 million for its share of Reid Oval, $2.5 million for its share of the new library at TAFE and another $3 million to restore and upgrade the old library space when it moves out.

What are the plans for this old library space that warrants a $3 million loan?

Please, please don’t tell me the council intends to spread out and use the old library for more office space?

If they do, then I want our old Post Office building back.

I would love to see it open to the public as an art space, communal space, cafe…anything but offices.

The fact this beautiful old building – one of the best in Warrnambool – is shut off to the public is a travesty and all you can see through the glazed windows are phone books and shadows.

4. Another resignation: Speaking of Reid Oval, the project officer for this $11 million project, Mel Starr, has resigned and taken up a job in Melbourne where – according to an email she sent to various sporting clubs – she can be closer to family.

As far as we know, nobody has been announced as a replacement, so perhaps one of the existing WCC managers will pick up the role at this crucial stage.

By the way, can anybody tell me if this Reid Oval upgrade, as it stands, will be enough to host AFL practice matches as we had hoped?

Or will more upgrades need to follow? I have been told it is the latter but haven’t been able to follow this up this weekend.

5. Cutting up the credit cards: And last but not least for tonight’s tidbits, the council agenda confirms credit card use is way down.

The number of transactions fell from 6757 in 2018-19 to 4139 so far in 2019-20.

Ombudsman Deborah Glass was on ABC statewide radio last Wednesday and said the investigation into the council’s credit card use was still ongoing. No release date for the final report has been given.

And that, terriers, is tonight’s tidbits.  (The council will live stream its meeting tomorrow night at 5.45pm.)

[This is the C19 version of The Terrier : short, sharp and shiny posts straight to Facebook rather than longer, in-depth pieces to unearth where the truth bones are buried. Rest assured those pieces are simmering along behind the scenes.]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A blue-chip whistleblower on allegations of fraud, corruption and bullying within the Warrnambool City Council has gone public and, in so doing, exposed how broken the system has become.

Dr Bernadette Northeast, who has the sort of credentials and governance experience that most councils would grab with both hands, recently resigned as Volunteer Coordinator from the WCC, having been shafted by the very process meant to encourage people to speak up.

Boy, we live in dark times when this is considered acceptable.

Dr Northeast told me she had compiled a dossier of evidence with the input of six other people – each of whom initially approached her – detailing serious claims of fraud, corruption and bullying within certain sections of council. #notallstaff

The whistleblowers not only detailed claims of wrong doing, but alleged particular senior council staff were fully aware of the allegations and did nothing.

In other words, there was a deliberate cover up.

If you were an investigator looking into a council, this sort of stuff is red hot.

Dr Northeast and five of the six other whistleblowers all spoke to the independent investigator hired by the council CEO Peter Schneider to get to the bottom of the scandal, but despite this incredibly brave step, they have heard nothing since.

In the meantime, wait for it, Dr Northeast was put under investigation by the same independent investigator.

Her “crime” was accessing documents she used as part of her evidence gathering, for which she found herself accused of serious gross misconduct.

This is despite the documents apparently being accessible to any council staff member via the intranet.

Dr Northeast, who worked for the council for seven years, was put on paid leave during the investigation, after which she resigned for another job.

During the investigation of Dr Northeast’s conduct and in the months since, she says, there has been no significant action as a result of the whistleblowers coming forward.

Each person identified by the whistleblowers, apart from former tourism chief David McMahon, has remained in their job.

As Dr Northeast says, it appears the investigation has been less focussed on the claims of fraud, corruption and bullying that were allegedly reported to senior staff, and more intent on finding out “who dobbed on us?”

By the way, the allegations not only include the now infamous misuse and abuse of some council corporate credit cards, but also claims of misuse of council accommodation at Flagstaff Hill, misuse of council contracts, purchase of equipment (including air conditioning units) which cannot be traced, and large alcohol purchases via direct invoice.

The whistleblowers also raised concerns about a personal relationship between two council staff members that allegedly led to “tip offs” about the focus of some Freedom of Information applications.

Others expressed their concern at a “boozy” boys’ club culture, summed up by a toga party held at the house of a senior staff member, to which select staff were invited and attended, and talked about for days.

This cosy boys’ club culture is what the vast majority of hard-working and ethical staff at WCC have been struggling with for years.

It reminds me of the WCC Christmas party at the Warrnambool racecourse last year, where two employees dropped their pants and ran naked past the finish line in what was apparently some sort of weird WCC tradition. It wasn’t repeated this year.

This sense of entitlement among certain parts of council is what we believed Mr Schneider would blow right open and, to do so, Dr Northeast is exactly the sort of person he should be listening to.

Her CV includes 17 years as an SES volunteer, a Director of South West Healthcare, Chair of Australian Institute of Company Directors Great South Coast Committee, and Deputy Chair of the Victorian Fisheries Authority. Good governance is her bent.

Yet Mr Schneider has not spoken to Dr Northeast about any of these allegations.

Mayor Tony Herbert, who has previously urged staff with any allegations to contact Mr Schneider, apparently told Dr Northeast that he would arrange a meeting with the CEO. She didn’t hear another word. (I have asked Cr Herbert to confirm this).

Dr Northeast then attempted to set up a meeting with Mr Schneider herself, without success, and says even now she remains open to a frank conversation with the CEO.

But Dr Northeast is no longer with the council, having been effectively the target of a concerted push to find any leakers.

A couple of other staff are also on unexplained leave, for what I believe are similar misconduct allegations connected to them attempting to reveal what is going on, not to hide it.

Other experienced staff have resigned in sheer frustration while waiting for a cultural change that never seems to come.

If this is how it works at the WCC, something is terribly broken.

This gets to the nub of why Dr Northeast has gone public, because she says the vast majority of council staff who are hard-working, ethical and honest people, are being unfairly maligned by the alleged actions of a few.

“For the sake of the vast majority of all the good people working at the council, this needs to be addressed promptly and openly. Yet we have heard nothing more,” she says.

“How long does this have to go on without direct rectification?”

It is a very good question and here are three more:

Where is the independent investigation up to?

Has the information from Dr Northeast and the six whistleblowers all been passed to the Ombudsman for her separate investigation?

And does the council even still have 81 corporate credit cards in action?

I am putting all of this to Mr Schneider for a response which I will run in full.

I have set up a Foxy Fighting Fund. If you would like to be make a small contribution, you can do so below.

The Foxy Fighting Fund

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Holy moly, I step away from Warrnambool for three weeks and return to find the place is on fire, with whistleblowers dropping an A-bomb right onto the Warrnambool City Council.

A string of red-hot allegations has been sent to Ratepayers Victoria after its president, Dean Hurlston, urged council staff to “whistle loudly” if they knew anything about the misuse of public money following the WCC credit card scandal.

Mr Hurlston has listed the allegations in a letter sent yesterday to WCC Mayor Tony Herbert and CEO Peter Schneider, and paints a damning picture of what was allegedly going on behind closed doors.

The allegations include cover-ups, mismanagement, fraudulent behaviour and a lack of action in response to staff concerns that stretched to the very top.

We even, allegedly, paid for private parties dressed up as “events”.

Here is the list:

Attempts over time to raise significant concerns of fraudulent spending and cover up of same;

Systematic abuse of internal controls of authorisation of spending by management;

Coercion and direction by senior management to subvert said controls and “help hide” spending;

Direction to suppliers to “alter” the contents of invoices to hide the true nature of expenditure;

The use of WCC resources for personal or family benefit;

The use of WCC assets for personal gain;

Inadequate reporting of expenditure (thousands of dollars’ worth of transactions reported as “supplies”);

“Parties” and “events” openly abusing the use of council funds (ratepayers’ monies); and

WCC not investigating or attempting to recover falsely procured items.

You might want to read that list twice, as I did, to digest it.

It sums up all of the issues that have been swirling around the WCC “credit card scandal” which, as I have said so many times, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Mr Hurlston has urged the whistleblowers to contact IBAC and the Local Government Inspectorate immediately and seek confidential and protected disclosure. (I am going to add to that and say they should also contact the Victorian Ombudsman straight away, where an inquiry is already underway. The number is 9613 6222.)

He has also urged the council to appoint an external investigator so all staff with any information about misconduct are able to speak freely and openly.

To be clear, at this stage these are allegations only, but the fact the whistleblowers have gone to RV in the first place speaks volumes.

Whistleblowers take an enormous risk and nobody throws themselves into that line of fire without weighing up the potential cost of being exposed and punished.

It comes as no surprise to me that RV says in its letter that some staff claim they have been intimidated and bullied “for trying to expose the truth”.

Yep, I know all about those tactics, and I can only imagine how dis-spiriting and terrifying it must be for those who depend on the council for their livelihood.

The WCC is still doing all it can to shut people up, including me, but it won’t work.

Why?

Because too many people want the truth.

You want the truth. The whistleblowers want the truth. Ratepayers Victoria want the truth. I want the truth.

So the council may continue to spend hours of energy trying to shut this all down, to limit the damage, to flush out the leakers, and to punish or discredit those who speak up, but it won’t work.

And our sole newspaper may prefer to write stories about desperate people stealing twiggy sticks or passion pop, but uncovering corporate crime and mismanagement is a slow, complicated and often boring process. Twiggy sticks get more clicks.

Yet the truth always rises to the top.

I call it a slow burn.

Even when a bombshell drops like today, it can take months or even years to peg out all the facts, but it will happen and it will be well worth it because that, dear terriers, is what accountability is all about.

It’s good to be back.

If you would like to support the work of The Terrier, please consider throwing something in the tip jar.

Terrier Tip Jar

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Foxy the fact checker has barged into the office, panting and sweating, with some freshly baked facts about the credit card spending of former W’bool City Council tourism head David McMahon.

Righto, Foxy, do your thing:

Fact: Mr McMahon repaid a total of $5666.85 to the WCC last year, not around $4000 as I thought from adding up the “missing” receipts released through Freedom of Information.

Fact: This is what has been repaid, not what should have been repaid. That figure is still being worked out.

Fact: This $5666.85 was repaid on Monday 5 November 2018, just six days after I lodged my FOI application with the council.

These two facts, which were released via Freedom of Information, took 5.5 weeks and $54 in fees to find out.

What other facts do you have Foxy? Cut loose!

Fact: Mr McMahon repaid the $5666.85 just a few days after a meeting with then-CEO Bruce Anson.

Fact: The council’s Audit and Risk Committee first learned of the credit card abuse when The Terrier published a story on 3 July 2019.

Fact: The Audit and Risk Committee met in November last year, the month of the repayment, but was told nothing.

Fact: Audit and Risk Committee meetings are attended by the council CEO (at that time Bruce Anson), the Director of Corporate Strategies, Peter Utri, the Manager of Financial Services, David Harrington, the Manager of Governance and Risk, Anne-Maree Neal, and an internal auditor.

Fact: On 20 November last year, after the $5666.85 repayment, the council published a six-month report into strategic risks, the chance of them happening, the impact and how to stop them. The $5666.85 didn’t rate a mention.

Fact: The credit card abuse was not reported to IBAC (Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission) under mandatory reporting.

Fact: Mr McMahon kept his job…and his corporate credit card.

What Foxy can’t reveal is exactly what the $5666.84 was spent on, because if you are of a certain mind, it’s easy to hide such spending, especially if you know that nobody is looking too closely.

Fact: Unauthorised spending was inserted into invoices, wrapped up into “room hire”, covered up in “catering”, or buried under those two little words, “council business”.

Fact: One of the missing receipts is for a 10-course, tasting menu with matching wines that lasted four hours in a local restaurant that Mr McMahon enjoyed with a Fun4Kids supplier.

Fact: Foxy found another little receipt for $78 worth of car parking in Melbourne on Friday 12 October 2018.

This receipt coincided with the 125th birthday celebrations of St Patrick’s College Ballarat, held at the MCG, which Mr McMahon attended as (now former) secretary of the St Pat’s old boys.

Did we pay for the parking? Probably.

Is that it Foxy? You must be truly fact after uncovering all of those facts.

No? One more? Okay, spit it out:

Fact: there was a third council person at the almost $700 dinner and booze up at the Myrtle Bar and Kitchen on 18 July last year, that included five bottles of shiraz.

It was Mr McMahon.

His name, unlike Cr Sue Cassidy’s, was missing from the receipt submitted to council by City Growth manager Andrew Paton.

Well fancy that, Foxy, fancy that.

Barry the Boolshite Detector has just passed me a note:

“Bring on the Ombudsman’s inquiry, signed Barry.”

[Note: the $1476 dinner at Pippie’s was a Sister-City function for people from Miura, Japan. Money well spent? I don’t know. Cr Mike Neoh was part of that event, but says he paid $83 toward the final bill that more than covered his share. He doesn’t drink. Cr Neoh bypassed the usual slog and outlined all of this in an email, two hours after I asked him the questions last Thursday. If only every other question to council was answered as quickly and directly.]

Terrier Tip Jar