WCC response to who attended two big dinners and why
A senior WCC manager paid for a $1470 dinner at Pippies restaurant last year, but who attended and why remains a mystery. Imagestock.
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.
Emails flying as factional brawl rolls on in Liberal branch
No love lost: Former Liberal MP for south west Victoria, Adam Kempton and current Liberal MP Roma Britnell, are caught in a factional brawl.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Meanwhile, over in sideshow alley, former south-west Liberal MP Adam Kempton has been suspended from his own party for conduct unbecoming, or whatever the party might call it, toward sitting south-west Liberal MP Roma Britnell.
Liberal v Liberal = ah, you gotta love politics.
Adam was apparently suspended after circulating an email that contained a less-than-flattering “gif” referring to Ms Britnell’s performance as an MP. Unfortunately the email was also – accidentally – sent to Roma.
Uh oh. (“Back button, back button! Argh!”)
Adam, (lawyer, barrister, Member for Warrnambool 1983-85) declined to comment, or to confirm it was indeed he who had been suspended, but said he may comment “sometime in the near future”.
The local Liberal Party has a thing going on with emails at the moment.
As was reported in the paper this week, a printed-out email, supposedly sent between Roma and her staffer, Jarrod Wooley, was posted to fellow Liberal MP Bev McArthur (Corangamite).
This email contained a low-grade “death threat” toward Bev and her staffer, Jennifer Lowe, so Bev decided it needed investigating by the police.
Roma decided it needed investigating by the police too, to clear her name.
Good grief, you couldn’t make this up.
So senior detectives – no less – are out with magnifying glasses and DNA kits and god knows what else, trying to work out who sent what to whom, when and why.
They admit it is going to be hard to pin anything on anyone.
I am not surprised, because the whole thing sounds like a very bad episode of House of Cards.
Let’s face it, if you are going to be making threats against a Liberal colleague, it’s probably not best to a) be a sitting Liberal MP and b) put it in writing.
I am pretty sure the whole thing is a load of cooked up cods, because the back story to this whole saga is there is a section of the local Liberal branch who dislike Roma very much – she was not their choice to run for the seat when Denis Napthine retired – and would rather see her replaced by former WCC councillor Jennifer Lowe or maybe current mayor Tony Herbert.
Call me conspiratorial, but all of this fake-email-death-threat stuff rose to the surface in the very week that Roma calls on the Local Government Minister to launch an investigation into governance and spending at the Warrnambool City Council.
It is a very popular move. Roma is on a roll.
What surprises me most is that some of the names swirling around this saga are the very people who would – normally – welcome such an investigation with open arms.
And yet, if they know anything at all about this whole ridiculous email caper, they are trying to undermine the very person who could help make that investigation happen.
Work that one out.
In the meantime, I am yet to hear whether the fraud police will investigate the goings on at Warrnambool City Council over the use of a corporate credit card. Stay tuned.
WCC credit card scandal: why the whole thing reeks
Warrnambool City Council Mayor Tony Herbert. Image: WCC.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Here’s something I have been wanting to tell you for a while.
Warrnambool Mayor Tony Herbert was alerted to the big spending by former council tourism manager David McMahon months before he says he was – not in November, but August last year.
How do I know? Because I told him. And he did nothing.
Here’s how things unfolded:
This time almost a year ago – on 22 August 2018 – I asked to meet with Cr Herbert to talk about two very serious things.
The first was an alleged spend-up on a lunch by Mr McMahon using his corporate credit card, and the second was allegations of bullying behaviour by this same person.
The reason I remember this meeting so clearly is that Cr Herbert confirmed he had heard “something about” the big spend up and that it “had been repaid, or was going to be repaid”.
This, to a journalist, is a chunk of gold.
I realised I was on to an important story and so my digging began and it would last almost a year.
Why am I raising this now?
Because the now Mayor Herbert recently made a formal, public statement that he first heard about the credit card mis-use in November as part of mayoral briefing with former CEO Bruce Anson.
The briefing, he said, followed Mr McMahon’s unauthorised spending being picked up by the council in September.
I was somewhat stunned by this version of events and have been waiting to see if Cr Herbert moved to correct the record, maybe even at last Monday’s council meeting, but that hasn’t happened.
Instead, Cr Herbert says he has no recollection of this part of our conversation.
(By the way, I will cover the bullying allegations in a later story, because that deserves an entire piece on its own.)
My setting up a meeting with Cr Herbert last August to talk about allegations around Flagstaff Hill management.
I now consider the 22 August meeting a critical part of the puzzle as to who knew what, when, and most importantly, what was done about it.
Cr Herbert’s version of events is that he called the meeting with me, not the other way around, so we could talk about my writing “more positive stories”. (You can read his response in full at the end of this piece).
The crux of the issue is that last August I raised a serious concern about Mr McMahon’s spending and Cr Herbert – it appears – did nothing about it.
He didn’t raise it with the CEO. He didn’t alert other councillors or the council’s Audit and Risk Committee.
For whatever reason, Cr Herbert didn’t consider this big, red alarm bell worth following up.
Mr McMahon’s unauthorised spending was apparently uncovered internally by the council a few weeks later, just by sheer chance.
This whole thing reeks.
And it reeks even more when you consider that once Cr Herbert was told in November – officially – about the credit card misuse, he was dead against my investigating it further.
Readers may remember Cr Herbert’s long Facebook post on Valentine’s Day, February 14, berating me for wasting council’s time and resources:
“All you seem to want to do is tear people down, with unresearched accusations,” he raged.
No, Cr Herbert, I was doing what you were supposed to be doing as an elected official of the people of Warrnambool.
A fortnight ago I notified the other six councillors of my August conversation with Cr Herbert.
There has been not one word in response. Nobody seems to care that Cr Herbert’s public statement is wrong.
A few weeks ago I dropped the f-bomb here: fraud.
Tonight I am going to use the c word: cover up.
Because from go to woah, this whole credit card mess reeks of a cover up.
It is now up to the powers-that-be to decide what happens next, because I have done all that I can to open up this particular box of bullshite around Mr McMahon’s credit card use.
Today I submitted a report to the Warrnambool Police. I have already submitted a report to the anti-corruption body, IBAC.
Who knows where those two reports will go?
But the wider credit card scandal doesn’t finish here, because I believe there is more to be exposed, beyond Mr McMahon, even though – I have to stress – the majority of council staff work hard at saving ratepayers’ money.
What needs to be exposed is the excessive or unjustifiable spending that was signed off by those in charge.
The new CEO Peter Schneider says he is looking at this. The Terrier is too.
It will be a slow burn, but it’s the only way to well and truly clean out the trough.
Mayor Herbert’s response to my questions about our 22 August 2018 meeting:
Dear Carol,
Thanks for your email.
I remember the meeting too, which I arranged.
I had hoped during our meeting to plant the seed/notion, as it were, that “positive leaders can create a positive community and positive communities can accomplish anything”. I was hoping to encourage you to be that leader. That was my single aim of the meeting.
I recall suggesting that people in Warrnambool would prefer more positive stories and those of a community-building nature. I discussed the relatively negative prior decade on Council and that I was now trying to be part of a team building a more positive council.
We chatted about what was good, what was coming up with some major projects – since announced in the Reid Oval and the library/learning hub at TAFE.
As we talked it became clear you were not interested in considering my feedback.
As the meeting concluded, we laughed and you said that the type of writing I was referring to was best left to The Standard and others and that you had a niche market writing in your particular style and to a particular audience.
Then you left.
On the matter of the council officer, I don’t recall this being part of our discussions. At that time I would not have had any information about money that had been paid or was to be repaid. Even though I attended the VTIC seminar, I did not know any information on officer spending, councillor spending or spending by others. I believe that the council credit card statements for August would have come through in September. You and I met on August 22.
For your further information, I have checked with the Finance Department today: Councillors/Mayors have never had credit cards at WCC.
I was unaware of the said officer either having a credit card or not having a credit card at the VTIC seminar. As Councillors, we have not been presented with a list of all credit cards in the organisation.
I trust this answers your questions and I look forward to you moving onto more positive stories for our community.
Regards,
Tony Herbert
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Mayor’s response…and did we pay for a day at Flemington?
Flemington Racecourse hosts a major race meeting each July, which corresponded with a visit to Flemington Quest motel by WCC council staff. Image: Victoria Racing Club.
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.
The council is yet to explain why up to six of its staff were at Flemington in July 2017, including at least one who arrived on the Saturday, a race day.
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.
Recognition Race day, held each July, is a major event on the Flemington calendar each year. Image: Victoria Racing Club.
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.
In early November Mr Anson, while briefing me on a range of matters after I was elected mayor, made me aware of the situation and indicated that WCC policy would be amended to make it more prescriptive based on the outcomes of his investigation.
As this was an internal staffing matter, Councillors were not involved as confidentiality was required.
The Council credit card policy, which has been in place for a number of council terms , and bearing in mind Councillors do not have Council credit cards – states that credit cards are to be used for official purposes only.
Prior to making a purchase with a corporate credit card, consideration must be given as to whether such expenditure is in line with the expectations of the Council.
This applies regardless of:
The amount of the transaction involved; and
The type of transaction made using a credit card. For example, whether the card is used to pay for goods/services which are bought directly from a merchant, or by mail/telephone/electronic means.
Although the matter was investigated in September 2018, our Chief Executive Officer is now conducting another review.
He is fully aware of his reporting obligations to external referral authorities and takes those responsibilities very seriously.
In relation to reporting, the CEO is legally bound to maintain confidentiality. He is following correct procedures, as we should all expect.
To reiterate:
Internal processes identified spending outside of policy in September.
Inappropriate spending has been repaid as a result of the investigation.
The CEO is conducting a second review and examining card use and processes.
The CEO is fully aware of reporting obligations to external referral authorities and takes those responsibilities very seriously.
As I am completely satisfied this matter is being dealt with appropriately , I do not intend making any further comments on this matter.
I trust this has answered your questions.”
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WCC credit cards: bringing in Barry, the Boolshite detector
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.)
Despite pushing for a rate hike, it appears no councillors knew about the council’s credit card spending.
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).
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.
I agree with Roma’s call for a full independent inquiry and so does Barry and I bet you do too.
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