Sex, lies and development
There have been better times to work in planning and development control in local government. No one doing so can be immune from the community's perception of relationships between local government at Wollongong and developers revealed, on a daily and increasingly astonishing basis, in the ICAC.
The taint spreads well beyond Wollongong and while it's inappropriate to say too much before the Commission hands down its findings, one confessed bad apple can have devastating effects on the barrel. The message is beware. We can understand why those innocently caught up in the exercise come to the realisation that the safest thing to do is assume everyone is a crook.
In the past 10 years the ICAC has claimed some local government scalps. In the 90s they said that the potential for corruption in development control was so open and available that it was surprising how few Council employees actually took advantage of it. It was a testament to the integrity of council staff. Many, many more councillors had been exposed than employees.
It may have been a surprise to the ICAC but this doesn't surprise us. Many years ago (probably 1985 or 1986) Nick Greiner, at that time Leader of the New South Wales Opposition spoke at the annual conference dinner of the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors. He said there were three great lies in life: my cheque is in the mail, I’ll love you in the morning and I'm from the Council and I'm here to help.
Nick was short on sensitivity and didn't get the idea that people who choose to work in local government really do think they're here to help. We understand that because we see countless daily examples of competent, caring and ethical professionals working across New South Wales protecting the health, environmental and development interests of their local communities. And so do you.
But it's timely to provide a reminder of the view we regularly publish than when it comes to the discretionary area of pecuniary interest declarations, we think it makes sense to declare everything. Coffees, lunches, whatever. It doesn't really matter what the Council wants you to declare (because Codes of Conduct are dynamic documents that sometimes lag behind community and public perceptions) and it doesn't really matter if people think you are being a bit extreme declaring a sandwich, it's all about risk management.
But the immediate observation has to be the double-standards. While the reformers and critics of local government want it to be more like the private sector, the ICAC wants standards of propriety that would bring the private sector (and private certifiers’ businesses) to a grinding halt.
depa fesses up on our dinner with Frank (back)
It's not just local government exposed at Wollongong. Political relationships between one ex-staff member at Wollongong and the ALP and the NSW Government ensured that questions are being asked about many others as well. Coinciding with the murkiness at Wollongong are the revelations about contributions by developers to political parties and who pays what to have dinner with whom.
The ALP is the principal recipient and our memory extends back far enough to recall that at the time developers got the right to buy their own private certifiers from Craig Knowles, developers were the largest contributions to the NSW Branch of the ALP. Funny about that.
$5,100 seems a lot to pay to have lunch with Planning Minister Frank Sartor. We know it was a fundraiser and all that, and a fairly common way of political parties doing business, and we also know that Frank is great company, a raconteur and storyteller but, depa has found that the Minister also responds favourably to a carefully worded letter.
While there were a few members who thought our January letter was a bit sub-professional there were even more members who thought that our language was far too temperate and polite. Suffice to say, it's hard to get Ministers of the Crown to pay attention to anything you want to say these days and our letter clearly worked.
A full and frank (if you'll pardon the expression) disclosure of views took place and the time with the Minister at least allowed him to understand our irritation at his unfounded allegations about Council staff, our concerns about the expansion of private certification and our worry that the concept of consultation with the community was really a hoax. Frank really didn't care about the letter, won't apologise - although understood why we were distressed, and invited us to participate in this Working Party. Total cost to depa, one $10 taxi. Okay, it's now out in the open.
The letter is temporarily removed from the website as a sign of good faith. Before it was removed, however, it created a record for the site. Many, many more hits than we have members and, as far as the Local Government and Shires Association is concerned, probably the best thing we have ever done.
But there is no shaking the Minister's conviction and we should prepare ourselves for the worst.
Some great responses in our "Let me be Frank with you" competition (back)
In the January Bulletin we announced a competition for members (and even those who enjoy our Bulletin but who are not members) to tell us what you think the phrase "Let me be Frank with you" really means.
We got some great responses. Some, greeted with hilarity in the office, are simply unfit to print and the winner of the prize for the nonmember also asked that we not publish their name. We respect that and are sending a prize to the entry:
“Take the cotton wool out of your ears, put it in your mouth and listen to me talk myself up”.
There will be four prizes in the member entry category and, the envelope please, the winners in alphabetical order are:
Chris Fuller from Kiama Council with his entry " Local Government, please accept copious amounts of intricate and conflicting legislation so that I can then criticise you for not dealing with DAs in a very restricted timeframe with no additional resources".
Nick Green from Great Lakes Council with his entry "Get ready for the greatest load of (expletive referring to bovine excreta deleted) you have ever heard".
A new member surprised us with two great entries. While one is unpublishable, we liked the other – “Did you hear about Frank's (impolite word deleted) transplant, the (impolite word deleted) rejected him.” Next time if you use the word sphincter instead of the word you chose, you could get published.
Peter Reynders from Queanbeyan City Council with his entry "I am going to let you know what a miserable person you and your sort (that work for the third tier of government) are, as distinct from myself who is being placed on a much higher human platform high above the sort of wretched beings who commit to work for the benefit and in the service of the local community, because I, as a result of my status, can be as condescending and rude as I like." Nice punctuation too, Peter.
Congratulations to all at winners, your prize is in the mail.
We have to observe that the Sydney metropolitan area made a very poor effort. All the winners are from those areas which will have the most trouble from the proposals in "Improving NSW planning (sic)" that staff be accredited at A3 level.
Another great competition for March (back)
Who didn't pick up the Daily Telegraph on 19 February, after the revelations on the first day of the Wollongong ICAC hearing, see the front-page headline "Development approved for sex”, and imagine all the big developers already driving down the Princes Highway to set up offices in Wollongong? Who needs to reform the planning system when it can be all that easy!
We have all had friends and acquaintances, and even family, make a smart observation or two about development approval and the lengths (whoops, please pardon the expression) people have gone to getting approval in Wollongong.
To try and find some silver lining in the cloud across local government, and to provide some comfort for those of you suffering those jibes the most, we have a new competition.
The member who receives the most Wollongong-driven unpleasant/smart/clever remarks about sex and their job over a seven-day period, from 9 a.m. on Monday 3 March to 9 a.m. on Monday 10 March, will win. To enter, email Jody@depa.net.au, and you will need to list all of the offending remarks.
We hope this is cathartic and therapeutic. 9 a.m. on Monday 3 March to 9 a.m. on Monday 10 March only. We will also provide a prize for the maximum number over a 24-hour period during that seven-day timeframe.
Committee resolves policy of opposing random drug and alcohol testing (back)
The Committee of Management at their last meeting resolved to adopt a policy of opposing the introduction of random drug and alcohol testing at councils. depa is involved in a dispute with Hornsby Shire Council over their intention to introduce random testing. We think random testing is an overreaction by over-enthusiastic occupational health and safety or human resources staff to what they perceive to be their obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. We think they're missing the point because random testing is not safety critical.
depa has no problem with testing based on "reasonable cause". Random testing ignores safety considerations because it applies generally to those who may be most at risk to the health and safety of their workmates or the community as well as those who have absolutely no impact on the health and safety of others.
It is also a debate riddled with uncertainty and questions. Why worry about illegal drugs that can be consumed by employees out of hours and are regarded in other areas (and particularly in sport) as performance-enhancing? We know that large areas of many professions rely on illegal stimulants as performance-enhancing and enabling long hours. The debate is too confused about whether this is a problem or not.
There is also little evidence that random testing has any effect on injury or illness absences and if the Council really wants to do something about efficiency and productivity of staff, and reducing its risks of injury and illness, what about a positive approach to healthy lifestyles, dealing with obesity, encouragement of fitness programs and so on? Why focus only on threats and big sticks?
UnionsNSW has a policy of opposition to random drug and alcohol testing and attended a meeting with representatives of Hornsby Council and depa this week. UnionsNSW will be assisting and supporting depa in this dispute. We expect that the USU and LGEA will be doing similarly. Because UnionsNSW is now involved, any council which moves towards random drug and alcohol testing will really be picking a fight with the entire NSW trade union movement.
We know that there are a couple of other councils (Upper Hunter and Kempsey) that have introduced these practices and once Hornsby is cleared up, we can move to resolve the problems there too.
Please let us know if your Council has a drug and alcohol policy that allows random testing or if they are contemplating it.
Committee of Management elections (back)
Members will have already received correspondence from the State Electoral Office advising that there is an election for one position of President, two positions of Vice President and six positions of Member of the Committee of Management.
The Electoral Office sent out more than 1220 letters to members and only 20 were returned. This is testimony to Jody's ruthless control of the accuracy of our membership system. It's an amazing result and it means that at our membership system is 99.4% accurate. If you haven't received advice about the election, that means you're one of the 20. Please call Jody and confess it's your fault and you wrecked her perfect score.
The election occurs every two years and is an opportunity for members to stand for the Committee and have a say in how depa operates. If you would like to talk about what's involved in this role, please give us a call.
Sydney Council rediscovers 19 day month (back)
One of the worst things that ever happened at Sydney Council was the inactivity of the other unions in watching the nine-day fortnight and the 19 day month gradually removed as positions became vacant. A number of General Managers didn't like staff having days off and took the view that systems allowing this should be removed in the interests of the council's efficiency and having people in the office more often. It was more an issue of managers failing to manage the RDO system properly and in the end everyone suffered.
In 1997 an agreement was reached as a result of a dispute filed by the MEU. We participated in the dispute (as did the LGEA) and the Council agreed not to remove the nine-day fortnight/19 day month without agreement with the unions.
At the time there was little turnover of staff in the area where we had members but in 1997, and again in 2001, we filed industrial disputes in the Commission when the council tried to remove the nine-day fortnight in advertising vacant positions. We had the days restored.
In 2003 we filed another dispute when the council tried to remove the RDO arrangement. Sadly, not supported by the other unions, the Council was able to assert "it is significant in this context that the other unions party to the 1997 agreement do not assert it to have the effect that the Union here urges on the Commission… No representations have been made about that by other unions party to the 1997 agreement. It is inconceivable that if their members were really thought to have that significant entitlement those unions would have ignored it for years."
This was a hard submission to respond to when the dispute was arbitrated before Deputy President Grayson. It is hard to imagine that people sat around and watched as 600 jobs were advertised without an RDO and Deputy President Grayson, in finding against depa, found this hard to believe as well.
Anyway, the relatively new General Manager believes that it should be restored. Sometimes a good and long corporate knowledge, while it might allow proper judgments to be made about history, also reminds us of our unfortunate losses.
We are glad to see an RDO arrangement return as a possibility at Sydney but history should not be rewritten to obscure why employees at Sydney lost it in the first place.
Ian Robertson
Secretary
