Lord Mayor Damon Thomas can and should release the HCC’s Annual Report now – to disclose the Myer deal – prior to council nominations closing.
HCC Alderman Jeff Briscoe today called on Alderman Damon Thomas to release the HCC Annual Report now.
Yesterday the Lord Mayor had indicated he would only release the annual report on or after Wednesday 1 October.
The annual report should, in the interests of openness and transparency, be available prior to the close of nominations for 12 aldermen, the deputy Lord Mayor and Lord Mayor positions.
Nominations close on Monday 29 September.
“In my view, prospective candidates should have access to the Annual Report and there may also be other potential candidates that may consider nominating following the release of probable significant benefits promised or given to a developer – and Myer – that may be disclosed in the Annual Report.
“I believe it is important the Council’s disclosure of the deal with Myer and the Kalis Group is revealed to the public now.
“The Auditor-General signed off yesterday on the financials and the rest of the text is completed, so there is no reason for it not to be released, at least on the Council’s website.
“By not releasing it, the Lord Mayor is raising some serious doubts that there are other reasons for him not to release it.”
“One perception that is already in the community is that the HCC has been extremely generous to big business – and that is being concealed.
“There is now no real reason for delaying the release.”
*Jeff Briscoe is also Candidate for Deputy Lord Mayor October 2014 HCC Elections
• TT MEDIA HERE … as The Treasurer ‘”supports the removal of increments from the pay freeze legislation, and instead supports an amendment which will see pay paused for 18 months, instead of 12 months, and will limit pay rises to two per cent for six months beyond that …” and Kim Booth calls it a backflip which vindicates concerns … etc, etc …
• Ben, in Comments: Hobart City Council is negotiating deals to give away hundreds of thousands of ratepayer’s dollars, with recipients contractually required to offer personal benefits to Hobart City Councillors in return. The Mercury revealed today (25/9/14) that Hobart City Councillors received a total of $25,000 in personal benefits from North Melbourne Football Club, as part of the initial deal in which the HCC gave NMFC $250,000pa of ratepayer’s money to play football in the nearby Clarence municipality. The HCC Aldermanic Gifts Register* records the following comment for NMFC’s largesse: “Provided by North Melbourne Football Club as part of the City of Hobart’s funding package”. This comment is not uncommon on the 2014 Gifts Register – benefits were also provided to aldermen by Dark MOFO, the Festival of Voices, the Hobart Baroque Festival, and the Domain Tennis Centre, all as “part of the City of Hobart’s funding package”. Is this practice legal? If it is actually legal, is it ethical, and will the Integrity Commission rouse itself and intervene?
• Alderman Damon Thomas, Lord Mayor, City of Hobart, in Comments: Dear Editor, It is important that on behalf of the Aldermen of the City of Hobart I provide a brief response to the pointless article by Aldermen Briscoe in today’s Tasmanian Times and as also reported in the Mercury newspaper. His comments cast aspersions on all Aldermen and the countless hours of deliberations we as a Council have contributed to dealing with this important matter. The Council has already instructed the General Manager to expedite the release of the Annual Report to the absolute earliest date logistically possible. Contrary to Alderman Briscoe’s comments, the release of information about Council’s support or otherwise of the Myer redevelopment is not timed around when nominations for local government are closed.
• Jeff Briscoe, in Comments: #4 LM Damon Thomas’s attempt to outrageously distract my call for a timely release of the Annual Report by him has so many similar characteristics to a former Premier’s reaction when it was revealed by TT that a Gunns’ subsidiary (not normally a house renovator) was renovating his sandstone mansion in Southern Tasmania. Indeed former Labor premier Paul Lennon could have easily written the Lord Mayor’s response to my so-called “pointless article”. No matter how much Alderman Thomas now protests, there is nothing in my statement that casts any aspersions on my fellow aldermen; many have worked hard to get these disclosures into the public area. Alderman Thomas’s enthusiasm on Leon Compton’s ABC radio morning show a couple of weeks ago to personally guarantee the release of the relevant information was an attempt to show some political leadership in this area when before he was a follower, not a leader. So let’s not hide now behind administrative and so-called mechanical shields. The public deserve and are entitled to know and, the sooner the better.
