Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Here is a story of two lavish Warrnambool dinners, held two months apart, costing more than $2000 and paid for via another Warrnambool City Council corporate credit card.

“It’s just one credit card,” Mayor Tony Herbert keeps repeating, “just one”.

No, not one. Not two. Now three, and it’s not over yet.

I have to keep rolling these out, because two months’ after the first bombshell hit, the WCC still refuses to accept it has a deep-seated culture of entitlement and secrecy that has seen questionable spending of public money for years (#notallstaff).

This time it’s a dinner at the Myrtle Bar and Kitchen last July for perhaps three or four people, including a current councillor, who between them spent almost $700 on servings of eye fillet, five bottles of shiraz (@$79 each) and more wine by the glass before things wrapped up a few minutes before midnight.

The guests, I am guessing, must have had a decent old hangover the next day.

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

Another dinner, costing an eye-watering $1476, but for more people – maybe 10 – was held at Pippies By the Bay restaurant in late May last year and included dishes of eye fillet with crayfish tail, abalone entrees, yellowtail kingfish, duck breast, fresh oysters and desserts.

The food was washed down with five bottles of wine and six glasses of champagne, with several more wines bought by the glass before everyone piled out the door and into the night.

Both of these dinners were paid for by a senior council manager using a WCC credit card and were held less than two months apart.

I don’t know what these dinners were for and perhaps they were of enormous benefit to Warrnambool, so on Monday I asked the senior manager and the councillor three simple questions:

i) the purpose of each dinner?

ii) the demonstrable outcome for Warrnambool as a result of each dinner?

iii) who signed off on the cost of each dinner?

I still don’t know the answers to those questions, but you can read the response today from the WCC media adviser in full here.

I don’t want to incite a riot and this is a truth I hoped I wouldn’t have to expose, because I trusted the council would be in full blown action mode by now, but it just doesn’t get it.

All the council hopes to do is tweak a few internal policies and pray the whole thing goes away: it won’t.

Because this is not about catching people breaking the law – which is what Cr Herbert fails to grasp – but exposing the steaming pile of inappropriate and unjustifiable spending that gives so little return to the ratepayer.

It’s this unjustifiable spending – via poor governance – that people want independently audited, cleaned up and cleaned out.

There was the perfect chance for the Mayor, CEO Peter Schneider and the councillors to stand before the public at at last Thursday’s emergency meeting and say we are so sorry for allowing your money to be wasted. We are on to it. We are taking it very seriously and we are doing all we can to flush it right out.

Instead, they all – bar one in Cr Hulin – behaved like kids dragged before the headmaster, twitchy and testy, as if they didn’t want to be there, because they didn’t.

Local MP Roma Britnell recently confirmed to a resident that both she and the Local Government Minister were poised to intervene: “The opportunity was provided to the city council, by both myself and the Minister, to conduct an independent review, they have chosen a certain way to proceed,” she wrote.

So the council was dragged kicking and screaming to the table and it showed.

Cr Herbert stuck to his mantra. Cr Anderson sat there and said nothing. Cr Neoh – briefly – lost his temper, while Cr Gaston stood up and announced she was “very confident” all was well.

No, Cr Gaston, all is not well.

Let’s not forget that this council first talked about breaking the rate cap in 2017, yet throughout 2018, the unbridled spending on food, drinks and alcohol rolled on.

Nothing changed.

And because nothing changed, we are now picking up the bill through higher rates.

It is outrageous and yet we know it is just one part of a much bigger picture where so much waste was and is allowed to happen.

There was nothing illegal about a senior manager buying a shed for $100,000 and the council selling it for $2000. There was nothing illegal about throwing $3 million of taxpayers’ money into Flagstaff Hill and it now costing ratepayers $750,000 a year to prop up. There is nothing illegal about building an unnecessary roundabout outside the Warrnambool Bowls’ Club where Cr Anderson is a member.

And there was nothing illegal about council staff spending hundreds of dollars on food and wine, because it was happening in plain sight and approved by those in charge.

I have now reported on three council credit card holders who have indulged in questionable spending, and there are more (#notallstaff).

If our councillors don’t know about all of this by now, then our CEO is not doing his job for his $320,000-a-year package.

I know Mr Schneider is a busy man, but he did find time to email me last week, not with any answers or insights, but asking me to refrain from naming council staff.

As a journalist, I never publish a name without it being relevant, but I will wait and see – in this case – if the senior manager and councillor involved will step out and name themselves.

In the meantime, those of us outside the tent will continue to dive deep, down to the very bottom of this culture of entitlement and waste, and use every muscle we can to turn it around.

We still have some way to go.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

These were my questions about the two dinners:

i) the purpose of each dinner?

ii) the demonstrable outcome for Warrnambool as a result of each dinner?

iii) who signed off on the cost of each dinner?]

I will let the Warrnambool City Council response speak for itself. Here is it in full:

“We are aware you recently emailed questions relating to credit card expenditure to a councillor and Council officer.

This is Council’s response to those inquiries.

As we have previously advised, Council is fully aware of its reporting obligations to referral authorities and any actions that are required.  Those obligations are taken very seriously. The regulations around reporting responsibilities mean that Council cannot confirm whether a referral has been made and nor can Council provide publicity or commentary on the process.

The constraints on Council around the referral process have been made known to the media on several occasions in recent weeks.

The questions you have asked are also part of a current FOI inquiry initiated by you. Given these matters are yet to be finalised, it would be inappropriate to provide further detail at this time.

In addition to the above, at the recent Special Council meeting the following resolution was passed:

1a)       That Council, via the Audit & Risk Committee, immediately (Audit & Risk Committee Meeting of the 27 August 2019) engage an External Auditor to undertake an audit to review and assess the adequacy of:-

• Existing policies, governance, reporting and investigation processes/procedures in the handling of the current credit card misuse issue that was identified in September 2018.

1b)       The scope of the audit to include:-

            SCOPE

Review the adequacy of Council policies, procedures and processes in relation to:-

• Dealing with expenditure authorisation and delegation;
• Trigger points for reporting (unusual transactions and/or misuse and/or fraud) to the Audit & Risk Committee (via confidentiality reports or meetings);
• Trigger points when an auditor should be brought in (i.e. the period after unusual/misuse has been identified to when possible fraud is suspected);
• Guidelines on “taking face value explanations” vs “appropriate inquiry”;
• Guidelines to ensure there are procedures to mitigate and prevent the acceptance of face value assumptions;
• Adding another layer of probity and transparency by providing trigger points for the use of an auditor.

1c)       Should the External Auditor require clarification of the scope of the audit, as outlined in 1b) then the Auditor shall communicate directly with Cr Neoh and Cr Cassidy and the Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee.

1d)       Once appointed, the External Auditor to meet, in camera with Cr Neoh, Cr Cassidy and the Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee, to outline the scope (in accordance with 1b).

1e)       That the External Auditor report directly to the subsequent (post 27 August 2019) Audit & Risk Committee Meeting or early if called by the Audit & Risk Committee Chairman.

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.

Thankyou so very much to everyone who has supported The Terrier with a contribution to the Tip Jar: this investigation is the Tip Jar at work. You can be part of it by clicking below.

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Here we go again.

One of the big questions that hangs over the whole Warrnambool City Council credit card scandal is how many other cards were being used to eat, drink, and stay awake with endless coffees?

Tonight I can tell you that it does not stop with former tourism manager David McMahon.

In fact, my left rib tells me that we are just getting started.

While Mr McMahon ended up wandering down a crooked path, he was also – we must remember – spending thousands of dollars of ratepayers’ hard earned money on food, booze and takeaway coffees with the full approval of those in charge.

He was not the only one.

This is because the council’s secret credit card policy was so slack it allowed some council staff to spend up big on alcohol, food and their almost daily coffee run to Fishtales without fear of retribution.

And that is why we have a receipt like the one above.

It shows that in August last year, another WCC senior staff member attended a conference on the Mornington Peninsula and racked up $368 worth of drinks over two days.

This equals 40% of the total bill.

Toot, toot, all aboard! When there is a gravy train on the move, it is never short of passengers.

The person who racked up this receipt in August was, I believe, at the Cape Schanck conference held in July where more than $1600 was spent on Mr McMahon’s credit card on food and drinks.

This person was also part of a five-day trip to WA with Mr McMahon in October, where the infamous “tackle” was bought after 7pm on a Friday night.

And all of this travelling and boozing was going on behind the scenes while the council prepared its case to raise rates above the cap.

It is like the days of Versailles, with a select group of council insiders enjoying the party, while the majority of people in Warrnambool work their backsides off to make ends meet and are being belted with rate rises, fee rises and fine rises, because the council is going broke.

The credit card spending is just one part of the enormous waste that has gone on for a decade, but it is perhaps the most disgraceful, because it can’t be explained away as a mistake, or a misunderstanding, or from “circumstances beyond our control”.

It is pure greed, aided and abetted by a system that let us down.

Those council staff – and thankfully they are in the minority – who carved into eye fillet steaks, or who ordered another bottle of red, or another round of beers, or another glass of white wine, or a $4 coffee on their $120,000 salary – knew exactly what they were doing and they were allowed to do it, until last October when the shit hit the fan as a result of my FOI application that would eventually expose the whole rort.

It doesn’t matter if the money has since been repaid and I don’t know, in this particular case, if it has. (Once again, the council is not answering questions.)

And it doesn’t matter how the council now tries to spin it: it was just one rogue manager, discovered – miraculously – just a month before my FOI, all repaid, all tidied up, a mere blimp, just a “social media” storm…

None of that is true.

What matters it that we are exposing a culture that led us to the financial mess we are in today and for which we are paying dearly.

And all of those behind the rot have to be held accountable, wherever they may be today, including those who have since left Versailles and are now living in Coquenball mansion.

I am waiting to see what happens next with the council’s reporting to the authorities, its investigations and its reviews.

And I am waiting to see if South Coast MP Roma Britnell’s call today for an independent investigation is heeded by the Local Government Minister.

In the meantime, we press on with our own investigations and reporting and reviews.

Thanks to your contributions to the Tip Jar, I today lodged two more FOIs on credit card usage with the council.

The answers may take a long time to come, but it is worth the wait.

Thankyou so very much to those who have supported The Terrier with a contribution to the Tip Jar: this investigation is the Tip Jar at work. You can be part of it by clicking below.

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