On 3 October 2023, in a move that many in the Huon Valley community were calling for but perhaps did not see coming so soon, Huon Valley Council General Manager Jason Browne was given an ultimatum to resign or be stood down.
The vote to remove Browne from the top job was six votes to three, with Mayor Sally Doyle and Councillors Andrew Burgess and David O’Neill being the only three voting against the decision.
It came less than a month after Browne provided an underwhelming performance review. On 5 September he attended an online GM performance review with an external consultant and gave himself a Hogan 360° score of 6 out of 10 for his past 12-month performance.
The Hogan 360° is a comprehensive multi-rater feedback tool designed to help leaders at any level of an organisation understand how their peers, managers, and direct reports view their performance. The Hogan 360° report analyses a person’s expertise and behaviour from different perspectives. The report focuses on the comparison between self-image and public image. For this, the report uses an anonymous survey of up to five groups of people including the participant’s own self-evaluation.
On 13 September 2023, Browne attended a GM performance review meeting with Mayor Doyle and fellow councillors.
On 25 September 2023, Browne attended a special closed meeting of HV Council where the only agenda item was ‘Departmental Reports 9.040/23 Personnel Matter’.
At the 27 September 2023 ordinary meeting of HV Council, two days later, Browne was absent with no explanation from the mayor, while the Acting General Manager Lachlan Kranz was at the head of the table.
Tasmanian Times has since been informed that the overall Hogan 360° performance review score was 4 out of 10, with at least one score of 2. Doyle gave Browne a score of 6 out of 10.
In a 21 October 2022 media release around Browne’s previous 2022 performance review, the then Acting Mayor Sally Doyle said … “the performance of the General Manager, Jason Browne, has been satisfactory based on the score of 6 out of 10.”
However, despite a merely satisfactory score, Browne received a 6.5% pay rise which amounted to an increase of $13,000. The increase saw his remuneration package climb to $259,175. It is also reported that following a motor vehicle accident, Browne was upgraded into a top end hybrid SUV.
His package was comparable to Kingborough and Glenorchy Council GMs. However at 0.94% of council revenue of $29.7m (based on 2020/2021 data), compared to KCC at 0.55% based on $51m and GCC at 0.46% based on $60.4m for councils being almost twice the revenue as the Huon Valley Council, there have been questions raised about the size of his GM package.
The Australian Services Union also chimed in at the time and slammed the 6.5% pay rise for the GM when council staff were only given a 2.75% increase.
In the same 2022 media release, the then Acting Mayor Doyle said:
“Specific measures and key performance indicators will be built into the next performance agreement to enable council to objectively measure performance in the next review period.”
On 19 March 2022 former Mayor Enders resigned from Council in a timely manner, namely within six months of the next election in order to avoid a by-election and to ensure that Doyle would assume the role of Acting Mayor until the October 2022 local government elections.
On 23 March 2022 former Mayor Peter Coad called for a suspension of Council over the conflicted GM debacle.
Former Councillor Christine Campbell.
In an opinion piece to the Huon News, 18 October 2023, former Councillor Christine Campbell, who along with Councillor Paul Gibson resigned when their concern over the biased and conflicted General Manager recruitment process was ignored, said:
“The sudden departure of the General Manager, Jason Browne, from Huon Valley Council after only two years in the role, is not unexpected.
“It was clear to us that the flawed process had elevated the wrong person to the position.
“My consistent warnings of the damaging conflict between the consultant and Mr Browne were ignored by the rest of the panel, to the point of being bullied and overruled to accept the flawed decision.
“The conflict of interest between the consultant and Mr Browne was handled with impunity, exempting those from the injurious consequences of allowing a flawed decision to be made in the selection process.”
In another opinion piece Huon News, 18 October 2023, Patrick Synge, Public Officer of the Huon Valley Residents and Ratepayers Association (Inc) said:
“His appointment followed what the Auditor General described as a ‘flawed process’ which the Local Government Code of Conduct Panel found had ‘treated people unfairly’ and had ‘brought the council into disrepute’. He started in the position under a cloud that never really lifted and it didn’t help that his contributions to the Council public meetings were far from inspiring.
“Given the findings of the Code of Conduct Panel and the Auditor General it would seem appropriate that Mayor Doyle should, at the very least, step down from the recruitment panel.
“An apology would also seem appropriate given the circumstances.”
There are further calls from the community for Mayor Doyle to, at a minimum, remove herself from the next GM recruitment process.
Even though the legal position, in accordance with section 27(1)(g) of the Local Government Act 1993 is for the mayor to lead the process, there is a view that the moral and ethical position of the council should be that the deputy mayor should fulfil the role of the mayor and lead the next GM recruitment process.
There are also calls for Doyle to step down from the role of mayor and to even resign her position as a councillor, given her involvement in this entirely flawed, if not corrupted process that has cost the community huge dollars and badly damaged the reputation of Council.
A number of council staff have also had their lives turned upside down as they resigned from council under the now failed leadership of Browne.
Tasmanian Times has had no response from Mayor Doyle to media questions around Browne’s sudden departure. Some of those same questions were provided to HV Council as public Questions on Notice, which is 7 days in advance of the next meeting, 25 October 2023.
The agenda for the next ordinary meeting has been published and has secured the following responses.
Question:
What was the reason for Mr Browne departing Council just two years into his 5-year contract?
Response:
Council accepted Jason Browne’s resignation.
Question:
What were the full costs incurred by Council in the departure of Mr Browne over and above any accrued annual leave entitlements?
Response:
Any costs associated with the departure of the General Manager are confidential personnel matters.
The question now being asked by members of the Huon Valley community, many of whom have been following this debacle since July 2021 when news of the flawed process was first revealed, is did Browne receive a golden handshake? How much more has this cost the ratepayers over and above the previous recruitment costs? Indeed, there were also the costs of the subsequent conflict of interest training for councillors who are no longer serving, (apart from Doyle), and the two legal reports into the entire fiasco which former Mayor Enders said she would release to the public, but who then changed her mind.
Just like the resignation of Mary Massina, the chief executive of the Macquarie Point Development Corporation who resigned four years into her term in 2022 and received $246,000 in ‘termination benefits’, did Jason Browne also receive a golden handshake payout courtesy of the ratepayers and this current HV Council, under the leadership of Doyle?
A comment made by a concerned ratepayer in a local Huon Valley Facebook group provides another insight into the situation the Huon Valley councillors now sees themselves in.
“Should have ripped the Band-Aid off and disclosed. This, now. But also right from the start, including the Edge Legal report. There would have been legitimate criticism—and it would then have moved further under the radar. And the earlier stuff might have avoided the additional criticism from the Auditor General. Poor and naive public relations in a matter where the public was already poorly served.
It’s not as if the Streisand effect isn’t pretty well understood by most people.
The coverup is usually worse than the ‘crime’ … although in this case they’re really going neck and neck.”
