Peter Coad: The wheels have fallen off …

Media Release by Cr Peter Coad

Huon Valley Council’s mayor, Cr Peter Coad, said today that the decisions of Crs 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: (i) dismissal of the councillors and appointment of a commissioner to perform the functions of the council; (ii) not call a new election for at least 12 months; 
and (iii) 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.
Councillor Peter Coad 18 Sept 2016