LEGAL BIFFO? Public service union threaten "challenge" over councillor-staffer ban

The Community and Public Sector Union that represents electorate officers and ministerial staff has condemned the Local Government Minister Richard Wynne’s move to disqualify and ban them from seeking or holding office in local government.

Julian Kennelly, the spokesman for the union has foreshadowed a potential legal challenge to the legislation saying “Legislating will be an unwarranted employment restriction and will be challenged.”

Hopefully this could be code for a legal challenge to the ban.

He has also raised definitional issues about what other Victorian citizens could be banned from council service, whether it might include all Parliament of Victoria staff or just electorate officers, all Department of Premier and Cabinet staff or just the minstaff.

Wynne’s announcement and the Ombudsman certainly been widely considered to be a massive over-reaction to the limited findings in the Ombudsman’s report which barely find anything substantially wrong with the operations of the past Brimbank council let alone enough to damn all councils.

The political difficulty – of course – is that failing to act on the Ombudsman’s principal recommendation would not be a good look.

The political downside of shafting the rights of the averagely-waged in electorate offices is apparently much less.

Perhaps uniforms are the next order of the day for this oppressed and harassed group of citizens without rights. On reflection, perhaps the Labor ones could be forced to wear the patriotic Red of the Colonel at KFC while the Liberals could borrow from the true blue qualities of the McDonald’s uniform. Perhaps party insignia could replace the corporate logo, as appropriate.

This is almost certainly going to be the first and last time VEXNEWS posts a missive from the Community and Public Sector Union so we hope you enjoy it:

STATEMENT BY CPSU – GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE – OMBUDSMANS REPORT – BRIMBANK COUNCIL

A single dysfunctional Council but they’re not sacking Brimbank just all Electorate Officers.

Victoria has 79 Councils with hundreds of Councillors acting honourably and some work for MPs.

Ombudsman refers to a perceived twin “duty” but the Government’s quick fix is about avoiding their own scrutiny.

What action is proposed against the MPs named? ‘Just a stern talking too”

Ombudsman has allowed the Perpetrators (MPs) to become the Executioners. Legislating will be an unwarranted employment restriction and will be challenged.

Forcing people to choose between their democratic participation in their local communities or their employment. No other citizen has that restriction imposed on them. It will return us to the days before the Political Rights Bill in 1916.

Who will be next – staff in the Premiers’ Department, what about those working at Parliament House.

One individual is wreaking revenge with the limited powers they have available within one Council. That’s where the resolution should be focussed.

All sides of Parliament will be affected and trying to kill the stories media life with an instant catch all reaction does nobody any honour.

This needs a considered response or Local Government will become the domain of the rich or retired.

Julian Kennelly Media & Communications Manager Community and Public Sector Union (former Councillor City of Melbourne and former EO) 7 May 2009

WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE: When Richard Wynne was a local councillor he was also an MP's staffer and ministerial adviser

Local Government Minister Richard Wynne has caused an angry firestorm from political activists by decreeing a ban on Victorian local councillors from working for federal and state MP’s and Ministers.

What has angered many is that the man responsible was himself a local councillor at the City of Melbourne from 1986 to 1991.

During that time he had another job.

Any guesses?

Yes, he was a ministerial adviser and electorate officer.

That ever reliable source of left-wing fact and opinion Wikipedia reports that after leaving behind a career in (sigh) social work:

He served as Electorate Officer (1988-90) to the Honourable Barry Pullen MLC, State Member for Melbourne Province, (in the Cain State Labor Government); and as Ministerial Adviser to Barry Pullen when he was State Minister for Housing in the succeeding Kirner Labor Government 1990-91.

Richard was an adviser to the Hon. Andrew McCutcheon, MLA for St Kilda (abolished), Victorian Minister for Planning and Housing, in the years 1991-92. The Kirner Labor Government was defeated by the Liberal Party led by Jeff Kennett at the state election of 1992.(VEXNEWS: Mercifully)

The Dick then continued on working for fellow Lefty Brian Howe, a federal minister til he contributed that government losing too in 1996.

We don’t have a problem with any of that. It seems certain that Richard would cause less social dysfunction by leaving social work and setting up shop in a Socialist Left electorate office.

But the hypocrisy of his move to ban councillors doing as he himself did is breathtaking.

Wynne has – like many MPs – had a background in local government and as an adviser. Unlike some, we think those things can probably only help a member of Parliament. Certainly it’s useful background.

But it doesn’t seem to have helped Wynne much at all.

He has gone along with an agenda driven principally by The Age that local councillors ought to behave like judges, not the democratically elected people they are. It’s the ultimate irony in a way, as many of the trendy lefties behind this approach will find many of their councillors and their causes caught up in the legislation that bans councillors from voting on issues where they have previously expressed strong views and have already made up their mind or have some affiliation with a cause.

It’s dangerous and it’s a time-bomb waiting to go off, in our view.

And the man responsible is someone who should know better. Someone who was permitted to combine his council duties with working as an electorate officer and ministerial staffer. Perhaps he was too busy playing factional games within the Socialist Left to pay attention.

The local Leader newspapers have quoted Wynne’s spokescomrade as saying around twelve councillors work for MP’s. We think the number could be even higher than that, and will report as this crisis unfolds. Even more ominously, the media unit’s Dan Ward declares the changes could be implemented as early as late this year.

Outside observers ought not underestimate just how toxic this decision is going to be among the stafferati. The ambitious among them could accept almost anything from their bosses, being screamed at, told to dodgy up TA forms, pick up the dry-cleaning or whatever but banning them from running in elections, that’s an affront so great that many will be looking for revenge.

“Watch your back, Dick,” a sentiment one angry Left-winger encouraged us to pass on to the wider community today.

PETTYGATE: Ombudsman's Brimbank report disappoints the bloodthirsty but costs the community plenty

The Ombudsman’s report into the Brimbank council has been handed down [pdf], disappointing most who’d hoped senior Labor figures would be damned by its findings.

YAWNMANIA
Its remarkably petty, squalid and trivial revelations that councillors there had – wait for it – been sent or viewed material that breached copyright or was of an adult nature summed up the whole shabby exercise.

Or had used their council provided mobile to phone home after a late council meeting to tell their spouse they were coming home. Yawn. That’s more sleep inducing than an actual council meeting.

We’d love to see whether the Ombudsman and his merry band of the self-important reimburse such phone calls. Perhaps they should start before the FOI request is lodged.

There was even a detailed check of the practice of buying councillors small “parting gifts” and a completely gratuitous listing of the past crimes and misdemeanours of people not even on the council. Nasty and petty stuff that added nothing to any serious investigation of whether the Councillors were behaving improperly or illegally.

THE REAL COST
It also argues the case – without much evidence – that Members of Parliament were exercising undue influence over the Brimbank council’s deliberations and that a cure is necessary: banning councillors from working for MPs.

Naturally the most laughably useless Minister in the Victorian Government, Richard – we prefer to call him Dick – Wynne, jumped to the tune of the Ombudsman who said that as a result of these shocking discoveries that no councillor will be permitted to work for a member of Parliament:

“We will also draft legislative amendments to give effect to the Ombudsman’s recommendation that elected councillors should not also be employed in Ministerial or Member of Parliament electorate offices.”

That announcement has caused shockwaves in political circles as it will hurt all parties, with Liberal, National, Greens political and Labor parties all affected.  Oddly enough, it’s mostly Labor people who combine council duties and working in MP’s offices or ministerial suites.

Whether it cause Councillors to be sacked or multiple by-elections is yet to be seen.

Either way, it is an absurd and bizarre qualification to impose on local councillors.

NUTTY
So nutty is it that while it responds to an officially stated recommendation of the Ombudsman there is every chance the draconian, undemocratic over-reaction will be blocked by the Opposition parties who have a majority in the upper house and might prefer to let voters decide the councillors they want to elect.

Equally nutty was Rob Hulls who branded the Brimbank council “Tammany Hall” according to The Australian’s quick-off-the-mark online report.

Hulls might have been politically smart to get out in front of any potential criticism of Labor but the truth boils down to this:

A CLEANSKIN COUNCIL DIVIDE BY FACTIONS
An expensive and detailed forensic investigation was made into past-serving Brimbank councillors and it found no evidence of wrongdoing of a kind that would give any serious person pause. Some of the councillors didn’t like each other, were in competing factions, talked to competing Party heavyweights etc. Big deal. They’re politicians, not judges. And the Brumby government is making a huge mistake in positioning councillors so that they must act like judges. Dick Wynne’s absurdly strict conflict of interest laws that mandate that councillors can’t vote on an issue they’ve campaigned on – or strongly expressed a private view about – is the ultimate example of how the Local Government department bureaucrats are out of touch with what communities want.

The Ombudsman’s views about how mayors should be elected is a case in point, his view is essentially that the arrangements entered into (and broken, typically enough) for leadership transition like the ones between Hawke & Keating, Howard & Costello are in some way corrupt or improper. Between judges they might have been, with politicians, it’s perfectly acceptable and none of the Ombudsman’s business. It should not surprise or perturb us that councillors make similar arrangements to the federal ones. Some councillors might well be thinking to themselves “Go away, cardigan-wearer and let democracy get on with it.”

In the bandit state of NSW, they’d barely raise an eyebrow to supposedly shocking revelations of inappropriate internet use or failure to reimburse “personal phone calls” or privately agreeing that person A should be mayor in year one to be followed by person B.

Councillors still – stupidly in our view – have control over town planning decisions. That’s where you see corruption arise. A council decision on zoning can add a zero to the value of a property. These are decisions best left to judges in our undemocratic view. But the truth is that even in that most aggro and hardcore of gladiatorial municipal political combat in Brimbank, that no wrongdoing of that serious kind was found because it doesn’t exist.

And by and large that’s true for most of the state. Victoria is very lucky that way. Other states cannot say the same.

DISQUALIFYING THE BEST QUALIFIED
So instead what we’re left with is a very small-minded, embarrassingly petty report that should never have been made necessary. It was prompted by a very unfortunate outburst by a local MP in Keilor who should have known better than to play the muck-raking games so often unfairly played against him in scandal-sheets like The Age. We have always defended him and look forward to celebrating his ten thousandth day in Victorian Parliament with appropriate fanfare but we didn’t like what he did and still wonder why he did it.

Fortunately the damage he’s done has been limited by the fact that there wasn’t that much of a dodgy nature at Brimbank going on at all.

But those dozens of currently serving councillors who work as electorate offices or in ministerial offices, across all the parties, federal and state, won’t have much for which to thank him.

And nor will the communities they serve, who get the best of both worlds by having councillors who work locally and are usually ideally placed to assist their constituents.

The law of unintended consequences has once again tripped up the wrong people. In this case, it’s any of us who was fortunate enough to have a local councillor who also worked for an MP.

NO PROPHET: Cossie's multi-billion dollar gold blunder

Peter Costello left the federal government coffers full after nearly a decade of responsible economic management, paying down Labor’s debt and fending off the lustfully big-spending ways of the deceitful PM who promised to make way but reneged.

That’s Cossie’s narrative. He hopes it will lead him to The Lodge after these partly self-imposed Wilderness Years.

But one decision made early in his Treasurership might leave him looking not so brilliant.

GOLD EXPORTS UNDERMINED
Despite concerns from the Australian gold industry at the time, in 1997 the government announced the Reserve Bank was to sell off most of its gold reserves.

Because Australia is a gold exporter, it helped punch a hole in the price of gold, keeping the price artificially low. Other central banks – mainly in Europe – took note of what Australia did and followed suit.

VERY EXPENSIVE COSSIE
The decision made on Costello’s watch has cost the nations many billions of dollars.

On July 3, 1997, the RBA announced, “Over the past six months, the Reserve Bank has sold 167 tons of gold, reducing its holdings from 247 tons to 80 tons.”

The approximate cost of that decision to taxpayers here is – at this stage – is at least $4 billion in direct terms and was as high as $5 billion earlier this year. The gold industry says it cost them billions more as the decision undermined confidence in gold as a store of value and prompted other central banks to sell off their reserves.

Indeed, looked at globally, Cossie’s contagious anti-gold move has prompted losses to European taxpayers of some $40 billion USD according to a recent report in the Financial Times.

LEAKED: Ombudsman's "confidential" report dropped in The Age

Royce Millar at The Aged reports the supposedly previously confidential Victorian Ombudsman’s investigation into Brimbank council will be tabled today.

The Ombudsman is mostly a force for good in Victoria. But today’s report in The Age will undermine the high regard in which that office is held.

Many will be troubled that Millar’s report appears to be well-informed in several respects suggesting leaks from those intimately familiar with the content of the Ombudsman’s findings.

It has not yet been publicly released.

And Victorian law is clear, it’s a crime to disclose information relating to an Ombudsman’s inquiries unless it is done officially. Arguably, Millar himself and The Age chaired by Ron Walker has broken the law.

The article insists that its informants were “Labor and local Brimbank sources” were behind the leak but we’re not sure.

How would any of them know – for example – that “that the report, believed to be the largest ever by the Ombudsman.” That does rather sound like a leak – or boast – from the Ombudsman’s office.

The other tip-offs which we won’t detail for legal reasons are of a nature that suggests leaks from his office also. VEXNEWS understands that the Ombudsman’s procedure is to tell its targets of the nature of information it intends to publish about them. In this case, it’s hard to imagine any of those named rushing off to Royce Millar at The Age. He’s not the favoured journalist of western suburbs ALP moderates. His few connections with the ALP are of the inner-city and stridently left-wing variety. Normally we’d think they responsible, in this case, we doubt it. We doubt they were that aware of the detail of the Ombudsman’s activities in Brimbank council.

If that report comes out today, Millar’s story will look awfully like a “drop” from someone at the Ombudsman’s office.

It’s enough to make us wonder “Who will guard the guards?”