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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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

I very rarely do this in writing, but it’s time to drop the f-bomb.

Fraud.

It is not a word to be used lightly, but there is no doubt it is circling over the credit card scandal engulfing the Warrnambool City Council.

This is how the Victoria Police define fraud: “any deceitful or intentionally dishonest conduct, involving acts or omissions or the making of false statements, orally or in writing, with the objective of obtaining money or other benefit from a person/organisation for him/herself or another”.

Hmm, sounds like we might have a match.

The public response to this scandal is clear: ratepayers don’t want another review that goes nowhere, they want to know if there was fraud and, if so, what is being done about it?

In other words, it’s time to bring in the big guns.

This saga goes well beyond tourism chief David McMahon resigning and moving on, despite the council chiefs working hard to try and contain the fallout.

The CEO and councillors have known about this issue for months, but are now apparently gagged from speaking for legal reasons, which is no doubt a huge relief to those councillors who have not said a word.

I get nervous about speaking up too, but when it comes to backing the public, I would rather drown in a sea of truth than cling to a system designed to keep ratepayers in the dark.

We are still being kept in the dark, because none of what we have been told so far makes any sense.

Things got off to a bad start when CEO Peter Schneider, in telling council staff that Mr McMahon had quit, praised Mr McMahon’s many achievements and wished him well, as you do.

He then explained that the credit card repayments Mr McMahon and former CEO Bruce Anson nutted out over a table last November were work related.

Work related?

Why on earth would Mr McMahon be asked to repay more than $4000 from his own pocket – and possibly up to to $6000 according to my sources – if it was all work related?

And why would Mr McMahon agree?

I don’t know of anyone who would willingly hand over more than $4000 to their boss for work-related expenses.

And why, if everything was just a huge misunderstanding, did Mr McMahon give up his $100,000-plus a year job?

One of those expenses repaid was $736.50 for a “room hire” at the Lady Bay Resort just last September for a “conference” that the council, so far, can’t explain.

Did Mr McMahon accidentally hire a conference room at the Lady Bay? I had a look (see above) and unless you are booking a wedding, the Lady Bay Resort doesn’t have room hire that costs $736.50. The most expensive is $300.

It appears Mr McMahon also inadvertently spent several hundred dollars on drinks at the Cape Schanck resort and more on dinner at the Pickled Pig and also at the Warrnambool Hotel, and mistakenly bought a gift voucher for a full car detail, and gift vouchers for massages at the Logan’s Beach spa resort.

Mr Schneider now says all of this was “work related”, but at the same time, Mr McMahon repaid the cost and has since left his job.

Nothing makes sense and it never does when you’re only getting half the story.

Mayor Tony Herbert’s contribution so far is to tell the paper he is “very disappointed” and he could “understand” ratepayers’ “views”.

Views!  Ratepayers are bloody furious, and rightly so.

Because Cr Herbert, who promised to cut costs wherever he could, was there, along with Cr Owen, at the Cape Schanck conference when Mr McMahon shouted hundreds of dollars worth of drinks at the bar.

And Cr Herbert and Cr Owen were both there when Mr McMahon paid for every single VEAC breakfast and brunch.

Cr Herbert, you need to be so, so much more than “disappointed”.

And then we have the ratepayers’ money that hasn’t been repaid, but should have been.

There are at least seven occasions where Mr McMahon claimed food bills for VEAC meetings that were not official VEAC meetings, including the $172.50 “smoking gun” dinner at Bojangles on 31 May last year.

City Growth Manager Andrew Paton was Mr McMahon’s boss and a member of VEAC.

Mr Paton was also, ultimately, responsible for authorising Mr McMahon’s credit card spending.

Did Mr Paton not notice the bills for at least seven VEAC meetings that were not actually VEAC meetings? And if not, why not?

And to really hammer home the point, Mr McMahon – at Bojangles on 31 May last year – knowingly used ratepayers’ money to pay $172.50 for food and drinks that had nothing to do with council business.

And he lied on the council records.  And he organised for a receipt to replace the original.

F-word anyone?

We paid for all this.

This is why when it comes to public money, there are mandatory reporting laws and the CEO has to notify at least the anti-corruption bureau (IBAC) of potential wrongdoing.

I would have thought a report to the police would also be mandatory.

Mr Schneider says the council is “fully aware of its reporting obligations”, so I would imagine the council has reported this issue to IBAC and perhaps the police.

We can only hope so, and that a full, independent investigation follows into Mr McMahon’s spending and the spending on all 81 of the council’s corporate credit cards.

This whole credit card scandal happened because of, at the very least, a lack of scrutiny and transparency.

How far it goes, how deep it goes, and who else is caught in the net remains to be seen and – again – will only be settled by a full and frank investigation.

As the saying goes, those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

Having been ripped off for months before anybody noticed, WCC ratepayers deserve nothing less.

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