The amended Local Government Act has now come into effect. In our humble view it is a mess, a piece of legislation that the Monty Python’s of this world would have a fine time in lampooning. We will highlight only one aspect of the new legislation.
In their infinite wisdom legislators have decided that a Probity Auditor is necessary to investigate THE PROCESSES involved in any complaints of bullying, sexual harassment against a CEO. Please note – the probity auditor will not investigate the actual complaint, just how it was handled. But it gets even worse! At the 11th hour legislators decided to introduce an amendment which gave the CEO the power to declare complaints as “vexatious and frivolous”. So what we have is the ludicrous situation where the person complained about can decide whether the complaint is bona fide or merely vexatious.
Given that some Labor members then raised the perfectly logical argument that this in effect would constitute a conflict of interest, Minister Guy and later Minister Powell argued that this could be overcome by the CEO delegating this function to one of his/her underlings!!! This should work a treat in Glen Eira no doubt.
For those who would appreciate a good laugh (or cry) we’ve uploaded the sections from HANSARD which deal with this issue. We have to seriously question where plain old common sense has disappeared and why bureaucrats are increasingly becoming a protected species thanks to both Liberal and Labor governments.
Glen Eira Debates 
November 5, 2012 at 10:44 AM
The farce involves Planning Minister Matthew Guy yet again. I don’t think he thought through the implications of his changes, and his answers sound evasive. Sure, he can expect people to do the right thing, but what if they don’t. Neither the Ombudsman nor Local Government Inspectorate is obliged to do anything in response to a complaint. I don’t see how a good outcome can be expected if a Senior Officer that reports to a CEO is put under pressure to decide whether something concerning the CEO is frivolous or vexatious. But these criticisms were aired in the debate, and Parliament has decided to press on regardless. Somehow it has convinced itself that “guidelines” are sufficient. My prediction is that the legislation will be “looked at” again in the wake of the first serious f__kup in its application.