Inquiry into our secretive councils
- by: Political reporter Daniel Wills
- From:The Advertiser
- November 08, 201112:00AM
The public gallery at Burnside Council, one among a cross-section of councils whose use of confidentiality measures will be examined. Picture: Nigel Parsons Source: AdelaideNow
OMBUDSMAN Richard Bingham is auditing secrecy measures at 12 councils amid claims some are over-using or incorrectly invoking confidentiality.
The councils are a cross-section of city and country councils, and include the trouble-plagued Burnside Council, which was the subject of a ministerial investigation into misconduct claims.
Mr Bingham said he was already aware of cases where councils had incorrectly used secrecy provisions to exclude the public from meetings. Mr Bingham said he would report to Parliament with the audit findings and the councils involved were selected as a representative cross-section of the state, not because of specific concerns.
The councils are Alexandrina, Barunga West, Burnside, Ceduna, Coober Pedy, Grant, Light, Mt Barker, Murray Bridge, Onkaparinga, Playford and West Torrens. Mr Bingham will be allowed to make findings about behaviour at the councils if warranted.
Local government laws require council meetings be open to the public except in certain circumstances for privacy or business reasons. Local Government Association president Kym McHugh said councils strove to balancing legitimate needs for secrecy with reasonable demands for public disclosure.
“I welcome the representative audit by the Ombudsman as such an external review is an important test of how we are managing these matters,” Mr McHugh said.
AND STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH –
Ex Bendigo Mayor Cr Greg Williams
“In the last few years I have been saddened by the politicisation of council,” he said. “There is a view that if all nine councillors say the same thing in public, everyone in the community will believe it and think it is doing a good job, regardless if the merit of particular policies,” he said. “There seems to be a great fear of having public input and public discourse about policies.”
Cr Williams said the root of the problems were obvious. “I think the fundamental problem here is there are too many people on council who do not understand the role of democratically-elected councillors,” he said. “There are too many people on council who think their role is to support whatever the council organisation comes up with. I think that is wrong and dangerous. “The role of councillors is to represent community views to the organisation and to challenge the officers in a constructive way and promote discussion of different points of view. “I believe that is how you get good public policy.
“The best advice I was ever given was if you are sitting in a closed-door briefing and are thinking ‘I hope this issue never gets to the public’, then you are probably developing bad policy. “This happens most of the time with the current council.”
Cr Williams said real debate and options were being presented away from the council table. “Senior officers have an executive meeting every week where they do a lot of the debating for the council,” he said. “They work out which is the best option to put to council, and most of the time present only one option. “This is something that has happened since the 2004 election. “Prior to that, councillors were presented with a range of views and options from officers. “Instead, this debate and these options are presented in executive meetings and councillors don’t get to hear opposing points of view.”
Cr Williams said when that was mixed with the amount of “secret” agenda items in recent years, it became dangerous.
“Most decisions have been made well before the public consultation even begins,” he said. “It could be argued the Epsom supermarket was the most stark example of that. “The closed-door forums have become much more of a decision-making forum than they were before.
“The public council meeting has really become a rubber stamp, because we have a majority who think they should support whatever the council staff say. “The way the closed-door forums are now, councillors don’t even know what is on the agenda when they arrive. “During the last council term, if an officer came in with a late report, nine times out of 10 it would not be accepted because councillors needed time to look at it. “Now councillors are expected to turn up not knowing what is on the agenda, have a large report plonked in front of them and are expected to vote on it. “It is appalling. This is all dressed up under the argument of secrecy. Each year Bendigo council would have one or two reports that need to be legitimately secret.
“Everything else is done under the cover of secrecy to avoid public scrutiny.”
Cr Williams said an example of the politicisation was the recent community survey the council commissioned. “I would call this push polling. They set up people to have a good feeling, by asking them positive questions first about the good things of Bendigo, then slip in the political questions before going back to asking questions about the city’s great assets,” he said. “If they say Bendigo is a great place at the start, they are less likely to say they are getting bad representation. “The political questions are sandwiched in between the feel-good stuff, which makes me question the survey.
“But no doubt they will bring it out at the election and say it is more significant than the independent, state government community satisfaction surveys surveys which have become progressively worse over the past four years.” Cr Williams stopped short of urging ratepayers to vote against the current council. “Whether the community votes against this council is a matter for them,” he said. “However, I think the big problem at the last election was the candidates were not good enough. “I would very much encourage people who want to improve things to nominate.”
Glen Eira Debates 