While the findings of the Public Inquiry are, perhaps, not as complete as they might have been with a full terms-of-reference, they cover most of the issues of concern and are, obviously, the best we are going to get.
First, let us hope that the report puts a stop to the pernicious harping on the amalgamation of Gosford and Wyong as the root of all our problems.
As is made clear, there is no connection whatsoever between the amalgamation decision and the inept handling of our affairs by the Council.
The report does question the extent of the long-term efficiencies that could have been achieved by the amalgamation, as compared to the $40M cost of the exercise, but points out that the Council never set itself to achieve any of the desirable efficiencies, so any undesirable outcomes of the amalgamation are the responsibility of the councillors and not of the process itself.
The references to the actions of all the other participants in the drama – the Department of Local Government, the NSW Audit Office, the Council auditors, the various consultants who contributed studies, the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee – are brief but sufficient.
It now appears that the Council received numerous warnings from many sources about the path it was following but that the councillors chose to ignore them or that the warnings were too obtuse to recognise them.
A particular reference to the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee points out that this committee had no mandate to deal with any of the problem issues, which leads to the question of what use it was at all and why it needs to be retained.
A considerable portion of blame is attributed to senior Council servants who were either incompetent or careless in carrying out their duties of diligence in informing and advising Council.
My private information is that some lower-level servants were in despair at the course of events but were helpless to communicate their worries, while senior servants gave incomplete information to councillors or failed to make clear what the implications were of Council’s profligate approval of increasing budget deficits.
Finally, the great burden of blame is tellingly placed on the councillors who were untrained for their roles, haphazard in undertaking training that was on offer, casual in their attendance at business briefings and lacking in understanding of information that was placed before them.
The report is scathing about the behaviour of councillors in meetings, especially emphasising the time wasted on personal grandstanding and political point-scoring, in lieu of focussing on policy matters.
It also draws attention to the abject failure to achieve any kind of working cooperation between the various factions, citing the excessive numbers of points of order and code-of-conduct complaints, designed (the report says) to stifle the voices of certain councillors, rather than ensure a smooth running of the organization.
The introduction of partisan politics into local government has always been the bane of the system.
Instead of having a representative community group, with differing opinions but with a basic desire to reach consensus on the best management policies, we have a Council made up of factions whose fundamental aim is to magnify conflict and to dominate the decision-making process.
The report recommends that the councillors be formally dismissed, but there is no indication that the Minister is moving to take this action.
My reading of public opinion is that the electorate wants these councillors not only dismissed but barred from office: from manoeuvrings that have been going on since the suspension, it seems apparent that some councillors are planning to run again, as soon as the Administrator has finished his work and new elections are called.
One wonders whether voters will take heed from the painful experience we are going through and look more closely at the qualifications and records of candidates at the next election and not just cast the usual donkey vote.
Email, Mar 19
Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy