Huon Valley Guessing Games It first came to public light in October last that Huon Valley Council’s general manager, Glenn Doyle, and its community-services manager, Marcia Waller, had been stood down on full pay as a consequence of an action by Waller against Doyle.
Details of their dispute have not been released — nor should they be — but it’s now the end of January and still there is no sign of either resuming their duties or of how long the issue is going to take to resolve.
No one wants to know the nitty-gritty of this unfortunate situation, but the public of the Huon Valley — the people who pay council’s staff wages through rates and taxes — are surely entitled to some sort of explanation of where things stand. The nature of the Doyle-Waller dispute is not of public interest; what is of public interest is that the council has been without the services of two of its top managers for more than three months.
History shows that it’s not in the nature of this secretive council to take the public into its confidence. My experience in asking questions of council reinforces my own suspicions that “public interest” is not something that rates highly in the minds of those who control how the HVC behaves.
For example, in December 2010, I asked council’s annual general meeting this question: In light of the council’s loss of at least $3 million (possibly $4 million), as a result of its investments in speculative collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), would the mayor, on behalf of the council, be prepared to offer a formal apology to the people of the Huon Valley for the council’s loss of this public money?
Mayor Robert Armstrong read this answer to the AGM: The loss of the money is regrettable and has come about due to the council’s reliance on the advice it received from the Commonwealth Bank. The council is not able to offer an apology as to do so may jeopardise any future legal action or claim in respect of the losses. It is worth noting that the Huon Valley Council is not alone in being stung by CDO investments and that it is estimated that the total loss due to CDOs in local government in Australia will be in the hundreds of millions. The council is continuing to pursue recovery of these losses.
At the time, this was not an entirely unsatisfactory answer, though I fail to see how an apology for the simple fact that the money had been lost could prejudice a legal action. Only an admission of responsibility for its loss would have been injurious to the council’s legal position. (It seems, when it comes to saying sorry, there are more of the John Howards about this council than the Kevin Rudds.)
Another question I asked council’s 2010 AGM was: Would council consider abandoning its workshopping system and replace it with the committee model of deliberation (used by Kingborough Council), which, under the Local Government Act, entitles the public to attend committee meetings as spectators; or, alternatively, allow the public to attend, as spectators, council workshops?
The mayor’s reply: The council currently supports a total of 34 committees, the majority of which include community participation. The council previously considered the introduction of a more formalised “council” committee system and decided not to proceed. Even councils with formalised committee systems hold workshops to enable detailed briefing to elected members. Public attendance at such workshops is not considered appropriate.
There it was again, in that last sentence of the reply: council resistance to prying public eyes. Why so? Considering that councillors get elected on promises of transparency of process and of acting in the best interests of the electors, are electors’ best interests really being served by a council that makes its decisions in secret?
At the December 2012 HVC AGM, I asked this question of the mayor: Four years ago, it became apparent that $4 million of taxpayers’ money invested by council in high-risk, speculative CDOs (collateralised debt obligations) was in danger of being lost. In the ensuing year or so, all of that $4 million was written off. Subsequently, council indicated that it was taking legal action, against the CBA’s investment arm, to attempt to recoup some of those losses. Since then, there has, to my knowledge, been no definitive statement from council indicating the progress of such legal action. In light of recent part successes by some councils on mainland Australia in actions against other banks to recoup at least some of their losses, my question is, would council please explain to the AGM whether it has made any progress in its negotiations and whether at least some of the money that was lost is likely to be recouped?
The answer to this question was read to the meeting by Simone Watson, council’s acting general manager: The council is participating in a legal action against the Commonwealth Bank. Due to legal processes associated with any action it is inappropriate to provide any comment on progress or anticipated outcome.
This answer directly avoided the thrust of my question and, yet again, saw the council dodging its responsibility for investing in risky financial products. Council seems to forget that an adviser (in this case the Commonwealth Bank) only offers advice, while the decision whether to invest or not is the sole responsibility of the investor. Caveat emptor. The buck might have stopped at Harry S. Truman’s desk, but it seems Mayor Robert Armstrong is not keen for it to stop at his.
I also asked this question at the December 2012 AGM: Would council please provide a list of all contracts let, and a list of to whom the contracts were let, in the financial year 2011-12 in the following brackets: $0 to $30,000; $30,000 to $100,000; and $100,000 and above?
The answer, also read by acting GM Watson: The council has provided a list of contracts entered into in the financial year 2011-12 for a value of more than $100,000 in the Annual Report as required under the Local Government Act 1993 and the Local Government (General) Regulations 2005. Details of other contracts are not required to be provided and are treated as commercial in confidence.
This is an intriguing answer. It seems council doesn’t mind telling us the names of those who get the $100,000-plus contracts but won’t tell us the names of those who get the contracts below $100,000. (The vast majority of contracts let by council each year would be below $100,000 and most of these would be below $30,000.)
I don’t want to know who the tenderers are, but I do believe it is reasonable that the people who pay for these sub-$100,000 council contracts — ratepayers and taxpayers — should know where their money is being spent.
It is noteworthy that contractors’ identities are not “commercial in confidence” when they are in the over-$100,000 category, but they are when they are being paid less than $100,000. Hmmmmm! One gets to wondering why. Another factor worthy of consideration here is that HVC’s elected members (the councillors) have delegated to management the responsibility for the letting of sub-$100,000 contracts. So councillors don’t even know until after a contract is let — if ever — who won it.
All of these examples highlight both the coyness of councillors about the content of their deliberations and their palpable reluctance to keep the public informed on matters of public interest.
At council’s first meeting this year (January 23), there was an intriguing “closed council” item titled “21.003/13* Personnel Matter”. Did that item relate to the Doyle-Waller affair? It’s likely we’ll never know, because no information relating to secret council stuff is made available to the public. There are, of course, several aspects of council business that should not be out there for all to see, including genuine “commercial in confidence” details and personal “personnel matters”.
The problem today, though, is that council has been without the services of its most highly paid staff member and of another staffer who is on what must be, by local government standards, also a high salary.
Ratepayers and taxpayers have been paying for these two people to be sidelined since October. This means public money is being spent for no return while a depleted staff is battling on valiantly to cope with a greatly increased workload. This is an abnormal state of affairs, and in need of an explanation.
Is Huon Valley Council serious about sorting out this mess? That we won’t know if the municipality’s elected leader continues to fail to keep the electors informed about what is being done to ensure that normal service is resumed as soon as possible. — Bob Hawkins
