Howard reproduces 1929 disgrace

Ex-Prime Minister John Howard has become only the second prime minister in Australian history to lose his seat in an election which also rejected his government. This happened first in 1929, when Prime Minister Stanley Bruce lost his seat as well as government on the back of community dissatisfaction. But Bruce (great name for an Australian prime minister) had his seat only for 11 years - so losing Bennelong after 33 is unprecedented.

Well, it's hard to feel sympathetic. The overwhelming swing against Howard, based primarily on his attack upon your rights at work, showed that Australians thought that enough was enough. Those who voted against Howard had plenty of other reasons to do so - Iraq, babies overboard, the Australian Wheat Board breaches of UN embargos, Australia's slide to a nation hostile to the needs of others when Australians really are better people than that etc etc. As Alan Ramsey famously said in the Herald on the Monday after the election, "we have our country back".

But all the polling, particularly all the exit-polling of those who had just cast their votes, showed that it was WorkChoices that did him in.

Well done to all of you and particularly well done to UnionsNSW for their relentless “Your Rights at Work” campaign.

What does the change of government mean for WorkChoices and NSW local government? (back)

It means that all those zealot HR managers with lots of great ideas about things that could be incorporated in individual AWAs, non-union agreements or even union agreements, have missed their opportunity. It's been 21 months since WorkChoices was introduced and there is only one AWA operating in New South Wales local government. And that is a very sad example.

Great Lakes Council was able to quickly reach agreement with its directors for an AWA which traded off paid maternity leave for pay increases. We've already mentioned this in Bulletins as a fairly pathetic example of the opportunities for improved flexibility available from a piece of Federal legislation aimed at reducing your rights at work. None of the employees covered by the AWA are women, so no one was actually giving anything away. Why would the Council think this was an improvement?

More importantly, what happens when one of the old blokes covered by the AWA leaves the Council and Great Lakes advertises to replace them? There is an obligation in the Local Government Act to appoint the best candidate but if the industrial instrument providing conditions of employment has removed paid maternity leave, does that mean that the Council thinks that the best candidate will always be a bloke? Clearly this AWA compromises the Council’s ability to discharge its obligation as an equal opportunity employer and one obliged to appoint the best person (not necessarily a bloke) to the job.

When HR managers talk about the flexibility they wanted to implement through AWAs, what they really meant was that they wanted the flexibility to reduce your conditions

of employment. Not much imagination or creativity involved in that.

The Rudd Government does not yet have control of the Senate but the Sydney Morning Herald on 18 December reported that the new Labor Government would immediately test the Liberal Party’s loyalty to WorkChoices by making the abolition of the policy the first item of its legislative program.

In the post election navel-gazing and the to-ing and fro-ing that accompanied the election of a new Leader of the Opposition, there was considerable debate about whether the election result provided a clear mandate for the incoming Government to make significant changes to WorkChoices. Some said it did (Turnbull and Hockey for two) and some said it didn't (the ordinary Kevin Andrews and Mr “interpersonal skills” Abbott included) and until the report in the Herald, things were no clearer.

The Herald reported that Dr Nelson “will reserve his position until he sees the legislation. ‘We have, however, heard very much the message sent to us’” but the Opposition remains deeply divided.

In the lead up to the election the Labor Opposition made a number of statements about protecting local government (particularly New South Wales) from the Federal legislation and ensuring that it remains safely and comfortably within the jurisdiction of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. The NSW Labor Government has supported local government employees remaining within the NSW jurisdiction and rejected any suggestion they might transfer or cede their industrial relations powers to the Federal Government. We hope that both the Labor Federal Government and the NSW Government remain true to their undertakings.

In the meantime, we will continue to operate in the NSW jurisdiction just as we have in the past. Things will become clearer over time but with all councils now having paid the 2007 Award increase of 3.2% or more, with most having signed Referral Agreements to keep them in the State jurisdiction, we believe that's where everyone will remain.

Oh no, more stupid proposals on planning reform and we file an FOI application to see the draft bill (back)

We are in the process of putting together depa’s response to the Department of Planning’s latest foray into reforming the "planning" system. Apparently with no indication of sarcasm or self-deprecation, the Department titles their initiative "Improving the NSW planning system". Improving would be a real change. We assume that councils are similarly preparing submissions and many members will be participating in that process.

Every few years a new group of bushy-tailed and enthusiastic reformers gets together in the Department of Planning and puts proposals which they think are going to help. Sadly, their focus is invariably on the applicant/developer and they never remain in the Department long enough to see that virtually everything they introduced in the last decade has been little more than a cheap shot at Local Government, ignorantly developed and pushed through what they describe duplicitously as part of a "consultation" process, which is nothing of the sort.

The current process and proposals are no different. The Government’s timeframe for implementation of whatever comes out of this exercise, requires submissions to be filed by 8 February, “considered” by the Department, then a draft exposure bill and further consultation and consideration and then into Parliament in time for things to happen from 1 July. Wow, Frank certainly makes things happen.

We think the draft exposure bill is already sitting on someone's desk and just to test this on Friday 14 December we filed an application under FOI with the office of the Minister for Planning Frank Sartor, to have a look at it.

We will keep you posted.

But while the Department of Planning finds a new generation of enthusiastic reformers, depa is not so lucky. We have an unfailing corporate memory that goes back as far as the Greiner government's initial flirtations with private certification in the late 80s and the string of planning "reform" initiatives introduced by Craig Knowles, and now Frank Sartor. The worst thing about all of these initiatives is that they try to blame local government for things that are not local government’s responsibility.

For example, every organisation in local government in 1996 said that the "integrated development assessment" planned to make applications and assessment easier, less complicated and quicker, would do no such thing. But the Government proceeded regardless of the wisdom of the opponents of the change and removed the separate processes of building applications and development applications. Everyone in local government knew this would be a mistake.

If you have read either the summary document or the Discussion Paper of November 2007, you would see that the Department now regards the system which it was responsible for introducing in 1997 as "lengthy, complex and confusing". While the Executive Summary says that the "discussion paper investigates the cause of these problems and identifies options for making the system more efficient and accountable" it doesn't acknowledge that it is precisely the Department of Planning and the Minister for Planning to introduce this system in the first place contrary to local government advice.

Sorry would have been nice. The Department of Planning and Planning Minister Knowles caused the problems.

Someone said if you don't learn from the mistakes of history you are bound to repeat them - the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce - but the Department has not learned that it is folly to change the planning system (they really mean planning and development control but don't like to acknowledge the development control part of it) without proper local government advice and assistance.

There really is no need to be so hostile. And hostile they are because their documentation (and the slide show at the information sessions) always begins with some statistics about complaints about local government to the ICAC, the Department of Local Government and the NSW Ombudsman. This is nothing more than a cheap shot. The number of complaints made to these organisations is nothing more than an indication that development control (and it's usually development control and not actually planning) is something that the community feels passionate about and wants to complain about whenever people feel aggrieved.

If they wanted to be even-handed, they would leave this cheap shot out or, at the very least, provide some statistics about what percentage of the complaints made are actually found to have been bad decisions or clearly the responsibility of councils or Council staff.

The Department even includes on page 100 of the Discussion Paper a case study under the heading "Councils’ expertise to deal with major buildings". Note the use of the apostrophe here because they use one example of a single council’s handling of the development to broaden the allegation to more than one Council. This is not just unfair, it is wrong. And the Council concerned is currently involved in an investigation by the Department of Local Government aimed at determining how the job went wrong.

Not only do they broaden the attack to councils generally but they ignore the restructuring that has subsequently taken place at the Council, the changes of staffing, the acknowledgement of understaffing and the investigation currently taking place that will pinpoint the reasons for the problem.

This is a much more thorough process than anything that would occur if a private certifiers was responsible for the job.

If you want to torture yourself with some history or print off something to read at the beach or in a nice quiet office in January, depa (or habsa and ehabsa before us) submissions made over the past 10 years are now on our website. You can find:

We plan to launch our submission on the current initiatives with the Department this week and will e-mail it to members and also put it on our website.

Oh no, the Department of Local Government stuffs up changes to senior staff contracts (again!) (back)

We always thought it was an overreaction the Minister for Local Government (Tony Kelly at the time) to introduce standard contracts for the general managers and other senior staff under the Local Government Act. You can read about it here.

The process itself was hopeless. The Department chose only to "consult" with the Local Government Association and Shires Association (the employers’/councillors’ organisation) and the Local Government Managers’ Association (the general managers’ professional association with no expertise in employment arrangements) and deliberately excluded the unions.

When we eventually saw a copy of the proposed final draft was sent them eight pages of comments.

For the past 12 months or so pressure has been applied to the Department to do something about the prohibition in the standard contracts that prevents payment for untaken sick leave being included. Regardless of whether payment for untaken sick leave is a good idea or not, the reality is that some councils do provide it and for those that do, it makes no sense to prevent existing employees carrying that entitlement into employment as senior staff. Especially when those employees have to forfeit that entitlement.

The Department doesn't understand employment law and believed that the 1994 amendments by the Fahey Government outlawed payment for untaken sick leave entirely. This is not true and if they’d asked us, we could have helped them. The 1994 amendment proscribed payment for untaken sick leave only under industrial instruments under the Industrial Relations Act - that is, awards and enterprise agreements. It had no effect on Council policies providing this condition or providing it generally as a condition of employment through an exchange of letters at employment. And the standard form of contract mandated by the Local Government Act is not an industrial instrument under the Industrial Relations Act.

What this misunderstanding has meant is that many existing employees of councils with this condition of employment are confronted with a difficult choice if they are offered a senior staff position at their Council. If they are sitting on six months accumulated sick leave, this is a very difficult decision to make.

This issue has been dealt with on and off at the Minister for Local Government’s Ministerial Advisory Council where the Department’s misunderstanding of the 1994 amendment was embarrassingly obvious. We also raised the issue on our list of problems when we met the incoming Minister in July 2007. The MAC acknowledged the need for proper consultation and resolution of the problem but only three weeks ago depa received a letter from the DLG Director-General advising that he intends "to shortly approve" amendments which will modify the prohibition on payment for on taken sick leave.

Sadly proposed amendments continue the confusion.

depa immediately wrote requesting urgent agreement not to approve the amended standard form of contract until the DLG had properly consulted with unions in the industry.

Apparently, although it must have been the most poorly worded invitation to consult imaginable, the DLG letter of 28 November "was to provide prior notice. The Department has not proclaimed these changes and did not intend to do so until the new year, so there is an opportunity for discussion."

We look forward to that.

Interested in that the Diploma of Local Government (Health and Building Assessment)? (back)

depa’s President Kerry Hunt was involved in the development of this new course with TAFE to fill the gap and provide multi-skilled training in health, building and planning roles in councils - particularly in response to the needs of rural and regional councils.

Facilitating a career in planning, environmental health and building assessment, the Diploma, together with Certificate IV in Local Government (Planning) and Diploma of Local Government (Planning) are "vocational qualifications that develop legislative knowledge and practical skills required by staff working in strategic planning, development and building assessment and environmental health sections in councils."

These courses are available in 2008 and you can use this link for further information.

Season’s greetings and a happy New Year (back)

We take this opportunity to extend to you all and your families the best imaginable time at Xmas and a fulfilling, well-paid, flexibly-and-happily-employed and private certifier/BPB and Department of Planning reform-free New Year.

The depa office will close on Friday 21 December and reopen on Wednesday 2 January.

 

Ian Robertson

Secretary