Ex-mayor Peter Coad today (October 13) said that there should be a parliamentary or judicial inquiry into the campaign waged by vested interests and certain councillors to have him removed as mayor.
On Tuesday this week (October 11), a confidential 54-page report by Page Seager Lawyers was leaked to the Mercury. “That report” said Mr Coad, “was commissioned by HVC management in response to the BoI findings and recommendations which had found that all parties should accept responsibility for the council’s dysfunction”.
Other findings by the Board were that there was a need for greater transparency in the council; that council’s audit panel was not performing as an independent body; that the information flow from the general manager to the mayor was an issue; that the GM had not always responded within a reasonable timeframe to requests from the mayor; and that the mayor was not provided with historical information.
“All of these findings,” said Mr Coad, “were provided by the two independent and highly qualified board members. None of their 55 recommendations recommended my removal as mayor.”
“HVC management and a majority of councillors did not accept the findings and recommendations of the BoI report,” Mr Coad said. “They commissioned Page Seager to rebut the findings, and what you have at the end is a report that lays the blame completely at my doorstep, and lobbies for my removal.”
The Page Seager report also argued, presumably in ignorance, that “the mayor has not demonstrated he has the appropriate skills necessary to perform the leadership function he is required to perform”. Mr Coad said this conclusion was completely misguided because he had nearly 20 years’ experience as a local government councillor (Port Cygnet and Huon Valley councils); he was HVC’s first deputy mayor from 1993; and he had three decades of public service executive management experience in industry training.
The Page Seager report also tellingly rebutted any findings of the BoI that had been critical of the GM.
“This was obviously another questionable tactic employed in the campaign to remove me at ratepayers’ expense, and it’s apparent that was very much politically motivated on the part of those who participated.”
Mr Coad said he had been compelled to take legal advice from a recognised specialist in the area in response to the Page Seager report. His own advice, he said, had argued cogently that there had been several potential breaches of the Local Government Act 1993 in connection with the retainer of Page Seager particularly in light of the nature of advice that they had given.
“The Page Seager report had no credibility because it had been commissioned by a majority on Council, through Council management, in a manner that raised very serious questions about its validity, and possibly its legality. Mr Coad said that he forwarded the advice he received to Mr Gutwein and his then Director of Local Government, Mr Phillip Hoysted in April, but have not yet received a response.
“The question has to be asked, is why not?” He said.
Mr Coad said: “Pressure from vested interests and from some councillors to remove a democratically elected mayor could be seen as a politically motivated bullying exercise designed to force me to resign and, thus, give them the opportunity to put a sitting councillor in my place.”
“Minister Gutwein’s decision to ask me to resign was also highly questionable. He had no basis other than the clearly partisan Page Seager report on which to make such a request, and it seems to me quite apparent that his also was a politically motivated decision.”
Mr Coad said he could only suspect who it was that had leaked the Page Seager Report to the Mercury.
But the leak had confirmed his suspicions that illegal actions may have been taken by those persons behind the campaign to remove him as a democratically elected mayor for having done no more than ask questions and make statements that reflected the views of those whose votes had elected him.
Mr Coad said now that the Page Seager report had again been made public (it was leaked earlier this year to 7HOFM), it was time that “intimidation of me as an elected official, the campaign for my removal, and the involvement of the minister’s office in that process, be investigated by a parliamentary or judicial inquiry”.
Peter Coad
Deep Bay
October 13, 2016
• Mercury: Sacked Huon Valley Mayor Peter Coad calls for inquiry
