When Central Coast Council was at the height of its financial crisis, announcing on October 6, 2020 that it had immediate and serious liquidity issues, it had $300M in restricted funds in the bank but could not touch it without the Minister for Local Government’s approval.
Council waited a fortnight for approval from the Minister, Shelley Hancock but it never came.
Nor did the promised assistance of an independent financial expert and a Human Resources adviser.
Instead, the Councillors were suspended and an Administrator appointed.
Those decisions were examples of State Government about-turns and political interference, suspended Deputy Mayor Jane Smith said in a submission to the Public Inquiry into Council.
Smith, who was the first Mayor of the newly amalgamated Council, said the State Government “appeared to turn adversarial” towards Council from as early as 2019.
“At the time of the elected Councillors taking office, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast was Mr Scot MacDonald,” Smith wrote in her submission.
“Mr MacDonald demonstrated a willingness to work cooperatively with Council.”
She said this changed when MacDonald was removed from that position after the 2019 state election.
“The NSW Government, both politicians and senior public servants, became adversarial and, rather than working on collaboration, interactions appeared to be serving a political purpose,” Smith said.
Smith said expectations were high in September 2018 about up to $400M for projects on the Central Coast coming from the Snowy Hydro Scheme Legacy Fund.
The Central Coast Regional Leadership Executive set up a working group to proactively develop bid-ready projects to make the most of this potential funding opportunity.
A list of potential projects included: the Somersby-Mt Penang Employment Precinct; the Tuggerah Smart Transit Oriented Development (TOD); the Warnervale Employment Precinct (WEZ); the Aviation Hub; and a Southern Growth Corridor Mass Transit Trial.
On January 10, 2019 representatives from the Department of Premier and Cabinet advised that the funding guidelines had been released and the Central Coast was not eligible for any Snowy Hydro Legacy Fund.
“This appeared to be a political decision with State elections to be held in March 2019 and contradicted the suggested benefits of amalgamation as being the leverage of significant funding for the region,” Smith said.
Smith criticised the State Government’s interference in planning issues and its effect on staff.
“Perhaps one of the most significant and disturbing illustrations about both the lack of accountability and what appeared to be State Government interference in Council’s role is in relation to planning matters,” Smith said.
“As a result of the merger and period of administration, there appeared to be conflict in some Council staff being responsive to the governing body of Council as opposed to being responsive to the State Government’s agenda and other external influences; this was most apparent in planning matters,” she said, citing the introduction of the Local Planning Panel and the Gosford SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy).
The State Government introduced a Gosford SEPP in 2018 which removed planning powers from Council, removed height and floor space limits from large sites in Gosford CBD and reduced developer contributions paid to Council by up to $190M.
Smith listed the State Government’s impact on Council at more than $337M in total with some impacts unmeasurable.
Smith said that the return of an elected body in 2017 after amalgamation in 2016 appeared to be an unwelcome development and an inconvenience to many of the senior staff who interacted with Councillors.
“Some either did not have the capacity or competency, or were unwilling, to deliver the standards of governance, accountability, transparency and reliability of information that was expected and required for decision making,” she said, citing a number of Councillor resolutions that were ignored by the operational arm of the Council.
This included the Warnervale Airport – with staff continuing to include the previous proposals in briefings and strategies despite Council resolving not to proceed with them and the Local Strategic Planning Statement.
Smith said senior staff appeared to ignore the resolution of Council to undertake work on the Strategic Planning Statement on a ward-by-ward basis.
She said Interim Administrator, Dick Persson, ignored the Council resolution to finalise the Statement before
finalising the draft Consolidated Local Environment Plan (LEP) and the Development
Control Plan (DCP).
“On 14 December 2020, the Interim Administrator, Mr Persson, resolved to adopt the Consolidated LEP and DCP, ignoring the lawful resolutions of Council,” she said.
Smith didn’t mention the role of Adam Crouch once he became the Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast in December 2019 but she wrote about him being unhelpful in the two years prior to that.
“During this period, Mr Crouch took an unhelpful approach to issues including, but not limited to, dredging of Brisbane Water, coastal erosion at Wamberal, upgrade of Winney Bay track and Terrigal Boardwalk,” Smith said.
Smith was one of the first to give evidence to the Public Inquiry while the public hearings were having technical difficulties and most of her testimony failed to be livestreamed.
Commissioner Roslyn McCulloch said at the time that Smith had prepared a very comprehensive submission to the inquiry and she thanked her for it.
Merilyn Vale
That news article tells the tale of the involvement of State government interference in the Central Coast Council! No wonder the un-Public Enquiry audio and visual was faulty it was planned that way! They did not want the interview of the ex Councillors made Public because the State government needed a scapegoat! They were set up! The carrot was the Council share of the SnowyHydro money that was dangled so the Council was busy planning projects and the deception worked! The minister for Local Government knew which is why she was unavailable when repeatedly contacted and why the Local Government Audit office did such a poor job of auditing the Councils books! People say conspiracy and they may be correct?
The Council had been through multiple restructures under different CEOs so the council workforce was distablatised. The $10 million offered for the amalgamation was woefully inadequate it is now estimated to have cost $150 million! Plus the natural disasters happening at that time from drought, floods, tidal surges and major Bushfires that the Council used funds that they were unaware were restricted is no real surprise. These are the same restricted funds that the new CEO and administrator are freely using with no consequences? Plus racking up enormous amounts of debt and stripping Council assets and selling parcels of land at firesale prices without bothering the ratepayers how much they are loosing on the deals! Its scandalous but they do not seemed too worried about it? There is an agenda they are not telling us and the local liberal minister has gone VERY quiet? After so many years of ranting about the Central Coast Council? Makes you wonder?
Thank you Merilyn Vale for helping lift the mists of subterfuge on this woeful chapter. Shame on all players attempting to ‘pull the wool’ over the good citizens of the Central Coast.
Your objective reporting allows the voice of one of our best ever Mayors to be heard despite all attempts to silence and besmirch her and the other Councillors. Nothing but a hand on heart apology from the LNP and a reinstatement of both Council areas ( a de merger!!) with appropriate funding to see a progressive vision of the Coast emerge through those mists of conservative power plays will suffice.