These documents relate to the public meeting held at the Franklin Palais on Friday 4 February 2022.

They consist of a letter from the Director of Local Government Mathew Healy which was read to the meeting by Tim Tierney in his legal role assisting Council; a response by Geoffrey Swan, who is referred to in the letter though not by name; a list of motions tabled at the meeting that were all passed by majority vote.

Note that the actual Healy letter was not provided to Tasmanian Times, nor indeed the meeting; we have recreated it by transcription of an audio recording.

Initial response by email – Geoffrey Swan, 6 February 2022

Dear Mr Healey

Further to our Public Meeting 4 February 2022 I must express my absolute surprise at the contents of your letter which was read as requested by Mr Tim Tierney in his legal role assisting Council.

Given all the issues and concerns, of which you are well aware, in the build-up to this most important Public meeting, I must express my extreme disappointment and concern that your letter was not provided in advance to the residents and ratepayers who attended the meeting. It was also not placed on the Council website where all motions and submissions were required 7 days in advance, as stipulated by Council.

It is my view that this further demonstrates the lack of transparency around this entire debacle, if not intended coverup.

That said, I now request a copy of your letter so that I may formally respond – something I was prevented from doing at the meeting because firstly, I did not have a copy of your letter, and secondly, because discussion and motions from the floor were prohibited under the rules laid down by Council’s Legal and Governance. Because the content of your letter contains content that is directed at me, as the person that first and foremost disclosed the leak, this left me somewhat dumbfounded at the time given all our discussions to date, our plans to meet in person, and that you did not have the decency to advise me of your “bombshell” letter.

I will formally respond, but to again repeat for the third time to your Office, the leaked information came to me in my capacity as a journalist with Tasmanian Times.

I have previously advised Mr Limkin and yourself that under our professional code of ethics I will not, and cannot reveal the source of confidential information. I did however provide you with the confidential information that was passed onto me – being names and employment, which in my view, was enough information to prove the leak was genuine. I also phoned your office to advise you of this leak, before I decided to publish. I made the decision to publish because of the response at the time from Mr Limkin, and given it was a hands free phone call, I suspect you may have also been in the room.

I subsequently took the advice of Mr Limkin and submitted a formal request for investigation pursuant to section 339 complete with my signed Statutory Declaration – however, as I have stated in my recent media release, that was 7 months ago and we are still waiting.

Your letter also refers to the Local Government Act 1993 and the responsibilities of the Minister – a matter that has been and continues to be a matter of disagreement in our discussions to date.

On 21 December 2021 you phoned me about matters before the Minister relating to the Local Government Act 1993 and his responsibilities and on 23 December 2022, you accepted that I would come back to you in the new year with continuing correspondence in this regard around the issue of the Minister being able to intervene in the GM Recruitment Process. I do apologise that matters of the Public Meeting along with a much needed holiday break have prevented my return correspondence which I will now attend to with some urgency following what was a most successful Public Meeting for our community.

Regards

Geoffrey Swan