Huon Valley Guessing Games Now that’s a fascinating thought to savour: Mike Wilson, councillor for 13 years, deputy mayor for two, telling voters that “It’s Time for Change”! Yet he’s still asking us to Vote 1 for him?
Come on, Councillor Wilson, you can’t have it both ways — not unless you have genuinely had a ‘Damascus’ moment. Or, surely not, is it that you are subtly campaigning for your mayoral-candidate opponent Peter Coad? Are you hedging your bets in case Coad tosses you? Coad is, after all, standing for what most voters should be looking for in a mayor: a man who plays a straight bat yet has a stream of big ideas about how to start pulling the valley out of the morass of despondence and unemployment it has painfully been slogging through since Robert Armstrong’s mayoral reign began in 2001?
There is more to this Wilson poster than first meets the eye. Read the small print, bottom left: ‘Authorised by Peter and Carol Pepper, 9 Dr. Dicks Drive, Port Huon’. That tiny type is worth thinking about. I’m assuming — though I should assume nothing — that the Peter Pepper in question is the man who returned to council in November 2011 and then suddenly resigned in November 2013. Pepper, serving as an independent councillor, displayed a quick and analytical mind, often subtly pricking holes in Armstrong’s Futures Party strategies. But it seems, in the months after then GM Glenn Doyle was sidelined in 2012, Pepper, deciding it was all too painful to continue beating his head against the Armstrong-built brick wall, resigned from council.
Today, if Pepper thinks it’s worth indicating approval of Armstrong by “authorising” one of his posters, maybe he is convinced that the deputy mayor has, in fact, experienced a Damascus moment; and that his promises of an open-door council — presumably meaning that at least some of the security curtains blacking out the innards of council will be drawn back and a bit of light let in — make it worthwhile backing his second cousin. (Or, possibly, it’s just that the poster above is a recycled one from a previous campaign.)
Mike Wilson has to be the Huon Valley’s most complex political enigma. He’s now talking “change”, and about an “open-door policy”, yet he is pictured in his campaign brochure with none other than MLC Robert ‘Boggles’ Armstrong, the man he has given his vote to on almost every council motion since 2001; and a man whose policy, as mayor, has always been to play his cards close to his chest and keep most of us outsiders guessing. For example, Armstrong didn’t even put out a press release last month to say he had signed over his mayoral authority to Wilson from September 1. (If my information on that one was wrong, the person who ought to have known better to advise me was telling porkies. And I don’t think he was.) And another example. No councillor seemed aware that Armstrong was going to attend the September 17 council meeting until he turned up about half an hour before it. Under the brochure picture of Wilson and his longtime Futures Team colleague: “I am supporting Mike Wilson,” says Armstrong. Surely Armstrong hasn’t been Damascus-ing, too, and is now going along with ‘It’s time for change’ and an “open-door policy”?
In Wilson’s brochure, defeated Legislative candidate Jimmy Bell, who blasted council a few weeks ago in a letter to the Huon Valley News editor, and then ate humble pie the following week, is there telling us that “Mike Wilson is a visionary leader who is future-focused . . .” Surely that’s more evidence for my Damascus theory?
CDOs: It should have meant instant resignation for Wilson …
And council’s lost $4 million. Wilson, along with other councillors, insists he had no idea council was heavily into CDO (collateral debt obligations) investments — to the tune of $4 million — until after the loss was revealed. For Wilson, and any other councillors who didn’t know about the investments, it should have meant instant resignation from council. Don’t they realise that each councillor is the equivalent of a director of a company board, with Armstrong the chairman? If they didn’t know where council had stashed away its lazy money, why hadn’t at least one of them the nous to ask. In the case of Armstrong, especially, ignorance was no excuse. He was supposed to be running the show, and should have known what his GM back in those days, Geoff Cockerill, and the “financial management” man, Mike Norman (who retired in 2013 but is now back on council as ‘Chief Financial Officer’), were doing.
In 2009, after the $4-million horse had bolted, Wilson moved for establishment of a “finance and risk management committee”. Recently, he slagged off Liz Smith in a letter-to-the-editor because she was the only one to vote against his motion. What he failed to mention was that Smith had moved an amendment calling for the committee’s meetings to be open to the public (except for confidential issues) and advertised. Shock, horror! Let the public know how their councillors behaved? Smith’s amendment went down like the proverbial lead balloon with the Armstrong Futures Team.
LAST week, at a candidates’ forum, Wilson claimed council had $8 million in the bank “as of Monday”. A disingenuous bid to counter suggestions that council’s cash reserves (including cash equivalents) were down to not much over $3 million in 2013, from more than $12 million in 2008? Maybe there really was $8 million in the council’s bank accounts last week, but that almost certainly represented largely rate revenues etc, most of which, surely, was earmarked for expenditure commitments in this year’s budget.
What council’s cash reserves will be at the end of 2014-15 will make interesting reading. It’s clear to anyone who can even half read a set of accounts that council’s financial position has been deteriorating year by year. In another couple of years, Huon Valley Council could well be teetering on the brink of insolvency.
HUON Valley politics, as I have found in seven years of observing council, moves in mysterious ways — ways that I’m sure will never fully reveal themselves to me or to anyone outside the close-knit, faceless “establishment” that pulls council’s strings. The longer I watch, the less I understand. Promises, assurances, reassurances, protestations of honesty . . . Sometimes the bedfellows are beguiling. And who will ever be able to understand why the people who wield that power cannot get it into their heads that there are no serious markets these days for non-valued-added timber?
But one aspect of the valley scene that remains constant is the tenacity with which the coterie that controls what goes on inside council dourly keeps council a secret society, the skeletons all securely locked away, including that seemingly avoided-like-the-plague $4 million loss (well, not until the election is over, anyway).
IN 2009, no one was surprised that Glenn Doyle was chosen to succeed Geoff Cockerill, who had been GM for 15 years. Both are valley boys, and nobody held any serious hope that a candidate from outside the valley, however well-qualified, would get the nod from the selection committee.
In 2013, keeping the GM’s job for a valley candidate got a bit tougher. Doyle, having been cleared of a bullying and harassment charge by an “independent investigation” conducted by a council-hired lawyer, decided not to resume his duties. But still the ranks held tight. From more than 40 applicants (from within Tasmania, around Australia, and possibly beyond) — surprise, surprise — valley blow-in lawyer Simone Watson, with only a handful of local government-experience years behind her (all at HVC), was confirmed as GM. What must have been vast LG experience offered by at least several other candidates seemingly had no impact on a majority of the four-member selection panel. That decision meant that, yet again, Mayor Armstrong wouldn’t have to share authority with a GM who might not understand how things are done in the Huon Valley. This is no reflection on Watson’s competence. I simply believe the appointment was predictable because of council’s long resistance to the idea of anyone from outside the Huon Valley being appointed to the pinnacle of its authority.
What evidence do I have to make me believe the 2013 HVC GM-selection process was a charade? Evidence is hard to extract from such a secretive organisation, but one telling factor for me was that, during her time as acting GM, Watson (September 2012 until her substantive appointment about a year later), presumably with the support of the mayor, carried out a “management restructure”.
My belief is that Mayor Armstrong, when Doyle resigned, knew exactly who would be taking over …
What council, anywhere, if it had any intention of conducting a serious selection process for its advertised CEO position, would even think of presenting a brand new GM with a fait accompli management restructure — except, of course, unless it was to the person who had done that restructure?
My belief is that Mayor Armstrong, when Doyle resigned, knew exactly who would be taking over from Glen Doyle. It wasn’t long before council’s staff hierarchy became “executives” — and wage rises probably went with their fancy new titles.
BUT now, late in 2014, a watershed moment has arrived. The good news is that Armstrong, as far as council is concerned, seems about to become history. Tonight (Monday, October 13) he will chair his last monthly meeting. Good riddance.
Irrespective of how voters arrange their numbers on their ballots, when the new council meets in public for the first time next month, there will definitely be three new faces. (As well as Armstrong, Tony Duggan and Rohan Gudden are not recontesting.) There might even be four new faces, but it is unlikely there will be more.
For sitting councillors, it’s pretty certain Bruce Heron, Liz Smith and Wilson will get the 10% preference quotas necessary to secure their re-election. Greens candidate Rosalie Woodruff should also get over the line. Ian Paul (a man of few words) should also make it, if only through a vote of appreciation from Judbury (he’s achieved quite a lot for that township, including a new community hall, and his support for the recent renovation of the nearby Glen Huon community hall should also help him). Amy Robertson could struggle to get her quota, though the effort she puts into her work as a councillor makes her well deserving of community appreciation. I notice, in a Huon Valley News advert (October 8, page 28) last week, that she is among those endorsed by the Huon Resource Development Group, a body in which valley elder and former councillor Alan Duggan is a leading light. The advert is authorised by former councillor and would-be kingmaker Laurie Dillon, who, in the same issue (page 7) “authorises” a team of self-styled independent candidates who “have the Huon Valley at Heart”. (Interesting to note that the ‘Heart of the Huon’ brand, so proudly launched last month by Wilson, seems no longer to exist.)
For deputy mayor and mayor, new rules are in play. Now anyone eligible to vote in the municipality can challenge for either position, whereas in previous elections only those with at least one-year’s councillor experience could stand.
Leopards are not known to change their spots …
Much is being made of transparency and open-doorness by Wilson, the councillor whose mayoral ambition has been thwarted for years. All the time, Wilson has voted solidly with Armstrong’s team, always secretive, and rarely showing any of the talents needed to establish sustainable economic success in the valley.
Leopards are not known to change their spots. So, barring a miracle, the good people of the Huon Valley municipality are unlikely to get either transparency or open-doorness from a council led by Wilson if his voting record since joining council in 2001 is anything to go by.
My great fear — may the gods forbid — is that the new Huon Valley Council, when it assembles for the first time in November, will have a developer mayor and a real-estate salesman deputy. May such a tragic combination manifest itself only in my most hideous of nightmares.
I’m not saying that the people I have in mind are without talent or integrity. It’s just that I don’t believe that real estate sellers, developers, public-relations types, journalists and religious fundamentalists (plus a few other occupations) should even contemplate standing for elected office at any level, let alone run the show. I try not to be discriminatory, but there are situations where certain professions, callings, vocations (describe them what you will) that simply don’t fit the mould when the objective is a form of democracy that — as well as working reasonably well — allows the people it serves to feel comfortable with. That old expression, “Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done” comes to mind. Political leadership should not only be just, it must be seen to be just. I, for one, could never sense a leadership to be just that rests in the hands of any of the types I’ve nominated.
My wish-list for the new council next month is: Peter Coad, mayor; Rosalie Woodruff, deputy; and, as councillors, in alphabetical order, Lydia Eastley, Michael Higgins, James Lange, Ian MackIntosh, Gina Poulton, Amy Robertson and Liz Smith. That would be a nice mix of youth and experience. And, best of all, it would mean that the Futures Team (now selling itself as the Heart of the Huon Team or as a bunch of candidates “with the Huon Valley at Heart”) would be in tatters.
My picks look to me to be people who would always put the community’s interests first. Because they recognise that slogans are cheap, these people don’t seem to have any. Instead, they are offering a rich mix of ideas that could get the valley on course to a truly sustainable future, rather than, business as usual, bouncing along through imagined booms and too many busts.
But, as they say, pigs might fly! Seems someone will have to be keeping an eye on council’s behaviour after the election. Any offers? — Bob Hawkins
Note: Bob Hawkins makes no secret that he is a Peter Coad supporter, and that he wants to see all the remaining members of Robert Armstrong’s Futures Team off council. He wants to see a drawing back of the thick curtains of secrecy that have cloaked council machinations throughout the Armstrong years. And he despises cronyism in any form.
