At last council meeting there was the (eventual) tabling of questions previously taken on notice. The time lag was 2 months! More significantly, two questions concerned the costs to ratepayers over legal proceedings and the machinations over the reappointment of Newton.
We report that the first question printed below was declared ‘inadmissable’ under Local Law 232 and the provisions of the Local Government Act – it was regarded as ‘confidential information’. Part 3 of another question received similar treatment. The rest of the question was taken on notice. In the public interest, since this information will not appear in the minutes, we publish in full both questions.
The ‘inappropriate’ question was:
“What is the current cost to council for:
1. Ms O’Neill in her brief to investigate allegations of bullying/harassment against Cr. Penhalluriack?
2. Have other lawyers also been engaged by council in this matter? If so, what is the total cost of their engagement to date?”
The second question was:
“What is the total cost to date for each of the following:
1. Engagement of an independent note taker
2. Engagement of a governance advisor to provide instruction as per the recommendations of the Municipal Inspector?
3. Any third party consultant’s fees in the performance appraisal of the current CEO? (ruled inappropriate)
4. The total legal costs pertaining to the reappointment of the CEO in 2008?
5. The additional advice sought from 4 independent heritage advisors on the 466 Hawthorn Rd property?
6. What is the anticipated or actual cost for the external legal advice involved in the GESAC allocations to either the McKinnon
Basketball Association, or the Oakleigh Warriors?
7. Will any of the above items be expected to accrue more costs? If so, which ones, and what is the range of this expectation?”
COMMENTS: The barred first question did not seek any information regarding outcomes of Newton’s bullying claims. Nor did it seek information as to who else might have been engaged in this matter. The question was purely monetary. As ratepayers footing the bills for such exercises, we believe that residents certainly have a right to know how much such behaviour is costing us!
The second question is similar in that it simply requests financial data – not information on actual appraisals. Hence, residents have a right to know how their money is spent on an issue that has been a festering sore in this municipality for nigh on a decade. Three Municipal Investigations are proof of that!
Glen Eira Debates 
July 22, 2011 at 10:38 PM
Anyone want to lay bets that there’s probably $60 to $70,000 in this little lot? Thank you Mr. Newton & Burke and the ol’ gang. Yas sure know how to waste my money.
July 22, 2011 at 11:47 PM
I’ve no idea what all of the above will cost, but I agree with Aleck that it is sure to be a hefty sum. Also an unnecessary sum. Most of the items listed are a result of what I see as total disharmony between councillors and Newton. Most of these costs are also the result of reappointment and the legal battles that probably ensued and were verified by the Municipal Inspector’s report. There are also other items which can only be looked upon with suspicion – such as the hiring of an additional 4 heritage advisors for the Esakoff partly owned property. Now there will probably be the added cost burden of a panel report. The Gesac allocation problem indicates again the divide between councillors and administration and the quagmire this has placed council in. The costs will again be borne by residents for this incompetence. Finally there is the price to be paid for the bullying allegations. The constant recourse to lawyers by Newton is in my mind deplorable. The Whelan report revealed that this is not a new tactic for Newton, especially when faced with councillors who refuse to toe his line. All this money is just another indication that distrust and discord are still very evident in this council. The only solution is to get rid of them all.
July 23, 2011 at 12:28 PM
All councils waste money. That’s just par for the course. But other councils probably don’t waste nearly so much money on infighting between councillors and officials.
July 23, 2011 at 1:26 PM
Yes, and we all believe in democracy and rule of law. Rule of law is to defend democracy. But you have some rulers that use it to subvert democracy and to serve the masters. It happens so often where there is a long ruling elite. In Glen Eira the Local Law is so different to other Councils that one needs to question why was it established this way? Who is gaining from it and who pays? Who pays is obvious. We all do. Who gains is a bit more difficult, but I do not think the public gets value for money. The question how do you overcome this clearly unsatisfactorey Glen Eira Rule of Law, which does not, I don’t think, serves democracy.
July 23, 2011 at 3:18 PM
A very timely commentary from http://members.optusnet.com.au/rbsmith3/Index.html
When issues affecting the interests of Big Business arise, Parliament and Councils become irrelevant
We have democratic process for all our day-to-day governance, but when issues arise where big money is concerned, an alternative sinister path is employed where key, influential, members of the bureaucracy influence our elected representatives to implement developers’ schemes. Our elected representatives need to be trained to recognise when a dodgy issue comes up, and be able to counter any bad spin they are given. They should also be given good training and incentives to do the right thing, and an even more compelling reason why, if they don’t do the right thing they will lose their rcomfortable status. In short, we must demand that our elected representatives implement governance for the people, and if they don’t, we must work towards ousting them and supporting alternative representatives who will.
Good Parliamentary governance is practically impossible without the permission of a very tiny brotherhood of very powerful and corrupt bureaucrats — Implementors — who are masters at distancing themselves from their unscrupulous deeds. Evidence of their machinations is hidden, burned or shredded and even if robust evidence of corruption is found, it is usually couched in obfuscating terms and signed by their heads of departments who know damned well what is going on, but who feign surprised innocence and hand the problem over to their publicly funded lawyers to prove that their underling’s black deeds are merely another shade of white. Or if the heat gets too much, the heads of departments claim stress and take early retirement on fat pensions — the poor wealthy blossoms.
It is a sad reality that Parliament and Local Government (Councils) need the cooperation of the bureaucracy more than the bureaucracy needs the cooperation of Parliament and Councils. Parliaments and Councils come and go every few years, but the bureaucrats remain. The problem is that those bureaucrats are necessary to give the good advice to the elected representatives for them to govern in the best interests of their constituents. That they do well in most cases of day-to-day issues. However, when issues that affect Big Business arise, they instead proffer the spin that their governors in Big Business supply. Whether Labor or Liberal gets to have the best seats and social calendar in Spring Street is irrelevant. So unless there is a sudden flush of moral fibre from the ranks of our elected representatives, the endemic corruption within the bureaucracies will continue to fester, immune to transparency and curative measures.
Most bureaucrats are worthy, well-qualified people, of whom we should be justly proud, and who do a good job in matters that don’t affect Big Business. However, when issues that do affect Big Business arise, the small band of powerful, corrupt, Teflon-coated bureaucrats, the Implementors, take charge to serve their real masters, the businessmen. MHRs and Councillors may of course challenge this powerful force of unelected Implementors, but they soon learn that it is at their peril!
“Yes Minister”, well parodies that scene, and it should send a clear warning to the people of the dangers of tokenistic government. However, it also sends the wrong message that such practices are humorously benign — that they are of little consequence.
Sadly, our Parliament is Government in name only. Big Business is the real government, aided and abetted by the well connected and coordinated forces of the powerful Implementors within the bureaucracies and permitted by our elected representatives who dare not seriously challenge the powerful bureaucrats lest those permanently-entrenched wise old bureaucratic villains crush them and take away their enjoyable fringe benefits and the unearned prestige that goes with the job of Councillors or State Parliamentarians.
It’s easier for elected representatives to turn a blind eye to corruption than it is for them to tackle corruption from within their bureaucracies. Councillors dare not risk the arsenal of weapons and the network of Implementors that the bureaucracy has at hand. In State Parliament, it is even worse. Trying to bring a corrupt bureaucracy to heel is too hard a task for most of our elected representatives.
If elected representatives dare to tackle corruption within the bureaucracy they soon find out that they face a Herculean task. They can’t even articulate the problem of which they are part, let alone contemplate the possibility and loss of face of botching the job, of not being able to handle the truth? Their promise to be fearless seekers of the truth and true representatives of the people who elected them normally evaporates upon being elected.
As the old military bureaucrat Colonel Jessep said in the film A Few Good Men “You can’t handle the truth!”
So if any individual or party has the wit to bundle a package that will rid us of this corruptive core and sever the controls it has over Councils and Parliament, I, and a few of my mates who have matured past the Concrete Learning stage will happily vote for that party — even for the Greens. I don’t care if they have two heads, fur or scales — anything that will send the message to the feckless Parties that we need urgent and rigorous surgery in the bureaucracies of Local Council, Spring Street and Canberra.
One may well ask:
• why this small coterie of influential and key members of the bureaucracy would sabotage democratic process when we pay them to instead serve us, the people? The answer to that is probably money or money in kind.
• do our Councillors and Parliamentarians realise the preponderance of dodgy information they are fed, and do they have the skills to evaluate and check the advice their bureaucrats present to them. Or do they fully understand what is going on, but sit back to reap the benefits of sweeping it under the carpet, or at best initiate a sham investigation of the problem? There are obvious ways of testing this, and it is an obligation of everybody to challenge their elected representatives and work to unseat corrupt officers.
July 23, 2011 at 3:34 PM
Wow, oh wow! Could this bloke possibly be living in Glen Eira?