9am, March 10, 2022
NSW Minister for Local Government Wendy Tuckerman has revealed under questioning that she has the report from Commissioner Roslyn McCulloch who conducted the public inquiry into Central Coast Council.
At budget estimates this week Ms Tuckerman was questioned by the Opposition’s Mark Buttigieg who asked where the inquiry was up to.
Ms Tuckerman replied: “I have received the review and I am doing my due diligence around the recommendations.”
When pressed on a timeline for a public disclosure, Ms Tuckerman refused.
“Obviously, as I said, I have received the report and I cannot give you a timeline at this point as to how long it will take to do my due diligence around the recommendations,” Ms Tuckerman said.
Mr Buttigieg, the Opposition whip in the Upper House of NSW Parliament, asked if the Minister thought the ratepayers of the Central Coast deserved some answers, “given the higher rates, service cuts and massive redundancies they have been facing”.
“Absolutely,” Ms Tuckerman said.
“I will be making sure that I am giving a timely answer with those considerations in place.”
But she gave no timeline.
The Minister also gave no indication as to how long she has had the report and did not reveal any of its contents.
The public inquiry into the financial crises of the Council was called in late April last year by the former Minister for Local Government Shelley Hancock.
Public interviews of the key players concluded in October last year.
The Commissioner also interviewed some people in private but the public was never told who those people were and no transcripts were released.
In State Parliament in February Member for Wyong, David Harris, talked about the predicament of the Council.
“This House witnessed a debate on a petition last year which was brought about by the community’s anger about lack of answers as to why the financial predicament of the council had come about,” he said.
“Central Coast Labor MPs at the time supported a full, independent, public judicial inquiry.
“We thought it should have had the status where an independent member of the bench was appointed to look at everything to do with the financial predicament of the council, including the merger, the decision to merge, the merger process, what happened with the council under the initial period of administration, what happened when the council formally elected the councillors and where it all went wrong.
“Minister Shelley Hancock, to her credit, announced the formal public inquiry into Central Coast Council on 26 April 2021.
“It did not go quite the full length that we had asked for but we were pleased that it was an independent inquiry and that it had open-ended criteria, which included looking at issues other than the performance of the councillors.
“It seemed a little bit pointed, trying to put the blame all in one place, where we and the community knew that there were a number of contributing factors to the financial situation.
“The public inquiry occurred during October last year and obviously the commissioner would have needed some time to compile the evidence that was presented, both the written submissions and also the verbal contributions through the public inquiry.”
He then congratulated Ms Tuckerman on her appointment as the new Minister for Local Government.
“I ask her to now act with haste to release the report – our community wants to know what the outcomes were, who was to blame and to make sure that those things do not happen again.
“Because of the financial situation, the current administrator is pushing through the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) for an extension of a rate rise for 10 years, which was initially allowed by IPART for three years.
“We do not think that should happen until the report is released and the public has a true account of what took place,” he said.
Merilyn Vale