First published September 20

The saga of the Huon Valley’s ‘dysfunctional’ council flowed on this past few days in a torrent of media releases. The rush started soon after Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein, offering no evidence, dumped on Mayor Peter Coad as the cause of all the trouble.

One wonders if the Minister has ever got around to reading for himself the report of his Board of Inquiry, which, in June, found HVC dysfunctional and made 55 recommendations — most of which Gutwein seems to have decided can be ignored ( see http://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/local_government/board_of_inquiry_-_huon_valley_council ).

The media releases make entertaining reading:

Rosalie Woodruff MP, Greens spokesperson on Local Government, September 15:

Minister for Local Government Peter Gutwein’s call for the Mayor of the Huon Valley Council to stand down is a shameful attack on the man elected to change the broken culture of that council.

The primary recommendation of the Huon Valley Council Board of Inquiry was to disband the entire council and call fresh elections.

Mr Gutwein was forced to set up a Board of Inquiry to investigate serial complaints about governance and misconduct, but he refused to take their advice. Instead, he created a sham mediation process that’s in no way independent.

By ignoring his own Board of Inquiry, Minister Gutwein has placed Mayor Coad, and the other councillors pushing for transparency and accountability, in an untenable situation.

Mayor Coad is an independent, popularly elected representative of the Huon Valley residents. He was elected by the community explicitly to change the council culture of backroom decision-making, special favours to councillors, and opaque financial arrangements.

The Board of Inquiry placed equal responsibility on the councillors, the General Manager and the Mayor for the communication breakdown that has occurred. The Board strongly argued against instituting a mediation process, and argued that the parties were past that point.

By ignoring the Board’s recommendations, Minister Gutwein has effectively picked a side and set the Mayor up as the fall guy.

Minister Gutwein needs to stop singling out the Mayor. He should stand up for the best interests of the Huon Valley and support the recommendations of his own Board of Inquiry, disband the council, and call fresh elections.

( – See more at: http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php/press-releases/#sthash.w6WbciJS.dpuf )

Councillor Ian Mackintosh, September 17:

Ian Mackintosh today signalled his withdrawal from the mediation process the Minister Local Government, Peter Gutwein, directed Huon Valley Council undertake.

“Minister Gutwein’s attack on Mayor Coad on Thursday flies in the face of his own Board’s findings along with their recommendations, the Mayor is not the problem here.

“The Mayor stepping away from the mediation process was for sound reasons and he is not alone with his concerns.”

Cr Mackintosh is supportive of the vast bulk of the Board of Inquiry recommendations. But by allowing a riven council to establish its own mediation process the Minister, perhaps unintentionally, has created an environment where real and tangible reforms recommended by his own Board are unlikely to be realised.

Cr Mackintosh has asked Minister Gutwein reconsider the Directions he has provided Huon Valley Council.

Mayor Peter Coad, September 18:

Huon Valley Council’s mayor, Councillor Peter Coad, said today that the decisions of Councillors Ian Mackintosh and Liz Smith to withdraw from the council’s mediation process demonstrated clearly that the wheels had fallen off Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein’s Ministerial Directions to the council, issued on June 15.

That two councillors had joined him in asserting that the mediation process was fatally flawed, said Mayor Coad, highlighted why the Gutwein board of inquiry’s main recommendations should be implemented.
Cr Coad asked how Minister Gutwein could expect the council to apply good governance principles when he had been responsible for imposing what had proved to be a flawed process on council.

“What the Minister has done,” he said, “was akin to putting the fox in charge of the hen house to deliver a process that was never going to work.

“The Board of Inquiry’s final report confirmed that mediation was not the answer to council’s dysfunctional state, and experts in corporate governance want the major findings of the board to be implemented.”

The independent board’s three main recommendations were: (1) dismissal of the councillors and appointment of a commissioner to perform the functions of the council; (2) not call a new election for at least 12 months; 
and (3) that the question of whether the Minister should have the power to dismiss a council’s general 
manager should be referred to the review of the Local Government Act 1993.

Cr Coad said the Minister’s directive on mediation had revealed that there was no genuine commitment on the part of the Heart of the Huon group of councillors to tackle the council’s serious governance issues.

“I hope the Minister does not ask Crs Smith and Mackintosh to resign from council, as he did me,” he said. “Both of these councillors are highly respected, and they represent their constituents in a very professional manner.”

Cr Coad said it appeared that Minister Gutwein had given much weight to the findings of the report of the commercial law firm Page Seager, in defence of the council, but very little to his own board of inquiry’s report on the behaviour of the council.

The Page Seager report, he said, which totally rejected the findings and recommendations of the board’s report, had very serious legal questions hanging over it.
Mr Gutwein’s attempt to remove a democratically elected mayor was not supported by evidence presented in the independent board’s report, said Cr Coad.

“The question has to be asked,” he said, “is why is the Minister advocating for me to resign when he has no evidence to support his request?”

Cr Coad said that, in April this year, he had provided Mr Gutwein with highly reputable legal advice detailing possible breaches of the Local Government Act.

“I have received no advice from the Minister as to whether this advice is being acted upon,” he said.

“It would appear that the Minister has chosen to ignore this legal advice and, instead, decided to advocate for my removal as mayor.

Cr Coad said he believed there were political motives behind the decisions of the Minister that were not being revealed to residents of the Huon Valley.

( http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/pr-article/peter-coad-the-wheels-have-fallen-off-/ )

Councillor Liz Smith, September 19:

I have written to the Minister for Local Government, Peter Gutwein, explaining my reasons for deciding that I will no longer be participating in mediation as part of the Ministerial Directions in the structure established by the council.

This is because I reached the conclusion that there has been little, if any, apparent change in the culture of the majority of councillors since the release of the Board of Inquiry report and the Ministerial Directions, despite the training provided to councillors by the Local Government Association of Tasmania and the Local Government Division.

I had hoped that the Board of Inquiry report, by highlighting the issues, would result in fundamental changes in the culture of the council.. To this point there has been little more than an exercise in “ticking the boxes” without addressing the underlying problems.

The opposition of the majority of councillors to the mayor’s contributing to all council committees by being an ex-officio member (in accordance with recommendation 38 of the Board of Inquiry) is a demonstration of the ongoing culture and the lack of respect for the position of an elected leader, and without that respect there is no future for mediation.

Similarly, the lack of support for the motion that I proposed at the August 31 council meeting to get a report on the Human Resources unit of council so that we, as councillors, could properly fulfil the functions for which we were elected, demonstrated that the majority of councillors want to continue with “business as usual”.

Their decision also appears to have been influenced by verbal advice provided by the General Manager at the council meeting. In addition, with the withdrawal of the democratically-elected mayor from the mediation, the process cannot bring benefit for the Huon Valley Council and its ratepayers.

( http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/pr-article/another-huon-valley-councillor-withdraws-from-mediation-/ )

Rosalie Woodruff MP, September 19:

The withdrawal of a second councillor from the Huon Valley Council’s mediation process should send a strong message to the Local Government Minister that his process has been corrupted.

Huon Valley Council appointing their own mediator has fuelled the division on an already dysfunctional Council.

Councillor Mackintosh withdrew from mediation because he was concerned it wasn’t independent. This can’t be a process designed by the Minister just to tick his boxes, but keep the status quo.

Instead of demanding that the popularly elected Huon Valley Mayor “step aside”, Minister Gutwein needs to return to the original recommendation of the Board of Inquiry.

Minister Gutwein has to stop pointing the finger at Mayor Coad, and have a good look in the mirror.

The Minister’s own Board of Inquiry was very clear about what’s needed — fresh elections, following a two-year period with an independent administrator. This is the only way to clean up the dysfunctional culture that’s developed on Huon Valley Council.

Huon Valley residents have launched a petition, calling on the Minister Gutwein to implement the Board of Inquiry Recommendations. They don’t like the Minister’s ‘pick a side’ process and want this handled responsibly.

Premier Hodgman has said he wants the people of the Huon to be confident that they’re getting the right level of service from their Council. That begins with Local Government Minister, Peter Gutwein, doing the responsible thing and taking the Board of Inquiry’s advice.

( http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/pr-article/huon-valley-council-mediation-fruitless-fresh-elections-needed/ )

Earlier …

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SACKED …

ABC: Huon Valley Council to be sacked after infighting, Minister to appoint commissioner Huon Valley Council will be sacked after mediation failed to overcome bitter divisions between councillors and the general manager. Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein told the Tasmanian Parliament he had hoped the council would resolve its issues through mediation, but it had failed. “As this council is unable to work together for the benefit of the Huon community, they’ve left me no other option but for me to take the course of action I have outlined,” Mr Gutwein said. “They deserve to have strong leadership, goodwill and and good governance.” The council has been plagued with infighting. Last week, Mr Gutwein criticised Mayor Peter Coad for pulling out of mediation and told him to resign. But Cr Coad refused to go and called on Mr Gutwein to sack the entire council, in line with the recommendation of an independent investigation. Two other councillors have since pulled out of the mediation process …

*Lindsay Tuffin has been a journo for nearly five decades … in Oz and Pomland.

Madeleine Ogilvie: Half a million dollars wasted in Huon debacle  Minister sat on his hands while dysfunction continued  Gutwein completely hands-off during critical mediation period  Ratepayers should not have been saddled with sorry state of affairs …

Peter Gutwein: Huon Valley Council It has been clear for quite some time that the Huon Valley Council has not been operating as well as it should. The Government believes that as a democratically elected council, in the first instance it is up to the councillors themselves to resolve their issues. We have assisted the council by appointing a Board of Inquiry to independently investigate a number of concerns and complaints that had been raised. The Board recommended that either the Council be dismissed or a mediation process initiated …

Rosalie Woodruff: Huon Valley Residents Suffer Gutwein’s Delay After three months, the Minister for Local Government has finally taken his Board of Inquiry’s advice on fixing Huon Valley Council’s toxic culture. Minister Gutwein’s decision to dismiss all the Huon Valley councillors, appoint a commissioner for at least 12 months, and then call elections at some point afterwards is a welcome relief. It took the withdrawal of three councillors and an online petition organised by Huon Valley residents to force the Minister to get his head out of the sand. We’re pleased he’s finally going to listen to his Board of Inquiry and address the dysfunction, but it shouldn’t have taken three months. It’s Huon Valley residents who have been left in limbo and who are suffering from Peter Gutwein’s poor process …

Watch Peter Gutwein make his statement HERE …

EARLIER on Tasmanian Times …

How low can Huon’s council go?

• phill Parsons in Comments: … Amalgamation with Kingborough may have broken the hold of local special interests but more likely is the pervasive idea that a ‘cargo’ will arrive in the hands of a white knight investor [Forestry, the hydro, a mining company, a sawmilling company, woodchip exports, world scale fish farms] will arrive to save the old guard will return to the halls of local government having festered in the other halls nearby and in Canberra. Until and only when the Huon transforms its own products and talents it will remain caught in the eddies of an economic backwater.

• Bob Hawkins in Comments: Between now and the arrival of the commissioner next month, Gutwein needs to appoint an acting commissioner to oversee day-to-day running of council. And, when the permanent commissioner takes over, a forensics squad should get to work delving into every nook and cranny of HVC files (well, those that still exist), going back if necessary to council’s formation in 1993. We don’t want to have to put up with more classic Lib/Lab crap such as, “Forget it. That’s all in the past. Let’s make a fresh start. Let’s move on!” I’m not alone in believing this council, one way or another, has never not had rot in it.