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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-18 Daily Xml
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BURNSIDE CITY COUNCIL

The Hon. DAVID WINDERLICH (14:57): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for State/Local Government Relations a question about Burnside council.

Leave granted.

The Hon. DAVID WINDERLICH: In her ministerial statement yesterday, the Minister for State/Local Government Relations referred to the resignation of Burnside council CEO Mr Neil Jacobs and said that media reports stated that he had resigned over a harassment case and that his ability to provide a safe workplace, free from bullying, had been compromised. The minister's statement also referred to a defamation action being taken by several members of the council's DAP against another member of council. On the basis of these two issues the minister has directed officers from the Office of State/Local Government Relations to have a meeting with the mayor and other officers of council as required.

The minister's statement also noted that there appears to be a continued deterioration between various council parties, and that that may not be conducive to good decision making and not in the best interests of the elected body, its administration or the community the council serves. So, two complaints have caused sufficient concern about the decision making of council to cause the minister to call an initial meeting with the mayor and the Office of State/Local Government Relations.

However, these two incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. Other incidents of concern at Burnside council in recent years and this year include: the fact that Burnside council has been the subject of four Anti-Corruption Branch investigations, covering matters such as bullying, misuse of council property and the leaking of sensitive information; a preliminary investigation by the Police Complaints Authority into allegations of entrapment and harassment is currently under way; two allegations have been made of a failure to complete a register of interests; and complaints have been made by councillors against each other of sexual harassment and violations of the code of conduct.

There have been at least 20 complaints, to my knowledge, to the Minister for State/Local Government Relations, alleging that regulations under the Local Government Act are not being complied with. A ward meeting of 60 people on 8 April 2009 was videotaped by a lawyer from Minter Ellison who would not reveal who was his client, and this was interpreted by the meeting as an attempt to intimidate free discussion. There have been at least five requests to the Minister for State/Local Government Relations for an investigation of the council.

There is concern about the influence of a businessman who financially supported the election campaigns of several councillors and who has told another councillor that he would not be getting financial support because he was not making the right decisions. Given this history of conflict on council, my questions are:

1. Does the minister believe that part of her role under the Local Government Act is to intervene to prevent councils from becoming dysfunctional?

2. When did the minister first realise that Burnside council was consumed by conflict between elected members?

3. Given at least five years of conflict on this council, why did the minister wait until Wednesday 17 June to take action?

4. Given the long history of conflict and the current experience of conflict on Burnside council, will the minister scrap the softly-softly approach of initial meetings and move straight to the appointment of an investigator under section 272 of the act?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (14:59): Don't worry about due process. Guilty before given any chance. I will take the issues one at a time, and I thank the honourable member for his most important questions. I do not need to go over the actions that I have taken in relation to the matters that I put on the record yesterday; I have outlined the steps that I am taking in response to that.

The honourable member asks why it has taken me so long. As the honourable member rightly points out, there have been a number of actions taken in response to a number of different complaints and issues that have been alleged in relation to individuals and certain actions and standards of performance over a number of years. To the best of my knowledge, each and every one of those has had some action associated with it across a number of jurisdictions.

For instance, I know that the police are currently investigating complaints and five members of the City of Burnside Development Assessment Panel are taking of legal action for defamation that is occurring in the District Court at this point in time. Obviously, that is a matter before the courts and it would be most inappropriate for me to talk about it here. When there are breaches, particularly those that go to the Criminal Law Consolidation Act, for instance, they are dealt with in other jurisdictions such as the District Court.

There have been a number of issues and complaints that have been raised with the Ombudsman. In fact, on 2 January 2009, in accordance with the Ombudsman Act, the Ombudsman provided me with a report setting out his findings in relation to a complaint against the City of Burnside. Based on the Ombudsman's investigation, the Ombudsman formed a view that there was, in fact, no evidence to support the complainant's allegations. Nevertheless, the Ombudsman did find that the council's internal controls were inadequate.

In response to that, I wrote to the council on 19 February 2009, requesting that it provide me with a submission in response to that report, detailing how it has reviewed its internal processes and what improvements are being made in order to prevent the reoccurrence of that particular incident.

The council has responded to my request, advising that it has implemented appropriate internal measures to ensure that investigations are carried out and that a follow-up system is put in place for future complaints. I am satisfied that the council has responded adequately to the issues outlined by the Ombudsman and will be writing to the council to inform it that in light of the actions that it has taken I will not be taking any further action in relation to those matters raised in that most recent Ombudsman's report.

So, there are two levels where quite considerable resources and actions have been invested into investigating complaints and following those up. My office has also received complaints—in fact, a number of complaints, I have to say—and it is usually by the same one or two people, and they are as regular as clockwork. They continue to come in and I have passed many of those complaints on to officers for investigation, not formally under the act but to make preliminary investigations to ascertain the validity of those allegations to determine whether or not it would warrant a trigger for a formal investigation.

I have to say that, of those matters that we have had an opportunity to investigate, none of the allegations can be substantiated. The allegations remain unsubstantiated. I have written back to the complainant to ask that they provide any other information they have that they believe would substantiate those allegations to me and my office or, if they want to complain to the Ombudsman, they can find redress through that means.

I cannot begin to describe the amount of resources and effort that has gone into investigating the large number of complaints we have received. Given that the police are yet to lay charges, and given that the Ombudsman—after his extensive investigations up to this point and the information he has had put before him—has found no evidence, and in spite of the investigations I have conducted so far, the allegations remain unsubstantiated. All I can say is that if we are able to obtain evidence of a breach I will be more than happy to enforce the powers we have to rectify that, as I am sure other jurisdictions would be. To suggest that the police, the Ombudsman and I have all been sitting around doing nothing is misleading and quite offensive in light of the considerable work that the Ombudsman and my agency, in particular, have undertaken in these matters.

In relation to the most recent events, I read in the newspaper (I think it was yesterday) a further statement about an unsafe workplace. That was the first time that issue came to my attention, and I acted upon it straight away—as I reported yesterday. It was a quite serious allegation, but it was an allegation made in a newspaper that I read. I am not aware of it being a formal report anyone had sent me; it was simply something I read in a newspaper. Nevertheless, even though no other evidence was provided, I acted upon it straight away to ensure that at least preliminary investigations would be conducted to determine whether further investigation was warranted.

As I said yesterday, due process must be afforded to all parties. It is most important that we do not try people by public opinion. These allegations can often lead to people being charged with a particular offence, and that has the potential to impact on their reputations and livelihoods for the rest of their life. It is most important that we get our facts right and afford all parties due process—and that is what is being done here.

I would also like to put on record how incredibly frustrating this is—and not just to myself. A ratepayer of that particular council said to me today that I should just sack the lot of them; that is how fed up they are with the conduct of some of these councillors. I understand their level of frustration because, historically, this particular council has had a series of councillors and staff members involved in quite significant personality clashes. There has been, shall we say, an unconstructive internal dynamic going on; in fact, one could say that there has been a great deal of internal squabbling occurring. This persistent, internal squabbling does not assist us because it creates a noise in the background that makes it even harder for us to see what is really going on and clarify the issues.

This behaviour not only reflects badly on those individuals involved in the squabbling and, at times, schoolyard-type behaviour but it also undermines the reputation of the whole local government sector. So, I will be recommending that that sort of behaviour is stopped and that we clarify and identify if and when real issues arise and act on them promptly, which is what I am doing.

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