Debate in State Parliament over a community petition calling for a Judicial Inquiry into Central Coast Council took little over half an hour and achieved nothing.
All that came out of the debate was confirmation that the NSW Government will pay for an alternative inquiry, a Public Inquiry, ordered by Local Government Minister, Shelley Hancock.
The State Parliament debate was triggered by more than 20,000 people signing an e-petition asking for a Judicial Inquiry into Council’s financial troubles, but it ended with only a vote to note the petition.
About 16 Central Coast people in the gallery were told not to applaud and to listen in silence to the debate held on Thursday, May 6.
Wyong MP, David Harris, began by acknowledging two local residents, Susan Green and Marianne Hamilton, for their work in getting the petition up.
He listed all the cuts to Council services and said residents wanted to know why this had happened.
Harris said they knew that the system of governance at every level had failed them.
The people want a Judicial Inquiry that would be independent, rather than a Public Inquiry conducted by the government, he said.
A Judicial Inquiry would require relevant people to attend, Harris said, and he listed all the parties which should face the Inquiry and the processes that should be examined.
These included current and former staff including the chief financial officers, but also the Fit for the Future process, the role of the transition administrator, Ian Reynolds, councillors; the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee, the internal and external auditors, the Office of Local Government, and the real cost of the merger process.
“Everything should be on the table, nothing should be left out,” Harris said.
He then went on to criticise the Premier for not calling a Judicial Inquiry.
After Harris’ allotted five minutes was up, Terrigal MP, Adam Crouch, then outlined what happened from October 2020 that saw the public become aware of the debt.
He said if a Judicial Inquiry had been called, the councillors would have been allowed to return.
He explained why a Public Inquiry was better than a Judicial Inquiry.
“As part of a Public Inquiry, under subsection 438U (2) of the Local Government Act, the independent commissioner has the same powers, authorities, protections and immunities as that of a royal commission,” he said.
“That includes the power to summon witnesses to attend and give evidence on oath or by affirmation, the power to require the production of documents from the council or others, the power to deal with contempt and the power to restrict public access to evidence that is regarded as confidential in nature.
“Any evidence collected by the independent commissioner at a Public Inquiry can be used later in court or at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), but if a Judicial Inquiry was held, any evidence collected would be inadmissible in court or at the ICAC.”
Crouch posed the question to the Central Coast Labor MPs, who put the Motion to debate the petition for a Judicial Inquiry, why they wouldn’t trust the head of the Public Inquiry, Roslyn McCulloch.
He said she was a highly esteemed figure who had more than 30 years of legal experience.
“Commissioner McCulloch has been given immense powers in her role presiding over the Public Inquiry,” Crouch said.
“Commissioner McCulloch has immense experience in legal practice and local government and has been given terms of reference that are as broad as possible, which will allow her to conduct an open, transparent and detailed public inquiry.”
Next speaker in the debate was The Entrance MP, David Mehan, who said the Premier had let down the constituents as she could have ordered a Judicial Inquiry.
He said the head of this Public Inquiry had nowhere near the powers of a judge.
“Will you broaden the Inquiry to look at the amalgamation?” he asked
“Would the Local Government Department pay?”
Mehan said the elephant in the room was amalgamation, with councils across the state struggling to deal with issues.
He mentioned a few items such as the Ourimbah masterplan and a mobile phone tower at Wyoming that had benefitted from councillor input to staff recommendations.
Kiama MP, Gareth Ward, spoke next and called the message from Mehan: “verbal diarrhoea and dribble and misleading to constituents”.
Then followed a series of points of order from Opposition MPs interrupting his speech.
“You want to return those incompetent Labor-Green councillors back……” Ward said, and while he talked the speaker was calling, order, order order.
Numerous points of order were called and upheld.
Gosford MP, Liesl Tesch, spoke next and she said that deep seated problems lay behind a number of NSW councils and the forced mergers.
She wanted terms of reference wide enough to dig into 20 years of pain.
“A Liberal merger tax”, she called the rate harmonisation process.
She noted that no problems had been flagged by NSW auditors or PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers).
She pointed out that the debt of more than half a billion mentioned by Terrigal MP, Adam Crouch, included $317M inherited from the former councils (Wyong and Gosford).
“I remind the Member for Kiama and the Member for Terrigal that it is not $560M worth of debt; it is $317M worth of debt that we inherited as Coasties from the two councils, which shed staff before the merger,” Tesch said.
“They flogged off a whole bunch of our assets, including our Gosford parking facility, and have dumped this on the administrator, who has then spent $50M on a useless administration system.
“We need the Premier’s help.”
Administrator, Dick Persson, said it is the hardest job that he has ever done.
“He said the backlog was out of control and the amalgamation is far from over.”
Tesch said that Council’s new CEO, David Farmer, was in the gallery, but the Premier was not in the chamber.
“We ask again for $70M to cover the cost of the mergers for our community,” Tesch said.
“The threat to us is the massive sell-off of public land.
“I have been on the phone with concerned community members from across the Coast.
“This needs more than whatever inquiry they are offering; it needs a deep, hard look.”
The Local Government Minister, Shelley Hancock, spoke next, explaining that the public would be getting a Public Inquiry that would have all the powers of a royal commission and would be far reaching.
Wyong MP, David Harris, replied saying it was good to hear the Public Inquiry would be wide reaching and that he took solace from that.
The Chair asked everyone to vote on accepting the petition, which they did.
And that was it.
After the debate, Member for Terrigal, Adam Crouch, confirmed that the “public inquiry will not cost Central Coast ratepayers a single cent”.
Crouch said the Public Inquiry was expected to take about 12 months and would be funded by the NSW Government, not Central Coast Council.
The cost was expected to be about $1M.
Merilyn Vale