Any action from people we rely upon to properly regulate the industry?

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Published: Tuesday, 29 September 2015 11:35

The OLG has been pretty busy and is probably still stinging from it’s embarrassing performance when it attended Budget Estimates with the Minister on Friday 4 September. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that if you were going to turn up at a meeting of the Budget Estimates committee, when your political opponents have the opportunity of examining your budget proposals, that there would be certain documents you might take with you and have safely in your possession.

We all make mistakes, and it’s good to be forgiving, but here is the transcript:

The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE:

I refer to page 8-36 of Budget Paper No. 3 and specifically the revised figure for investment revenue for the last financial year of $387,000. The amount listed for this year is represented by three dots. Can you please explain what this item is and why there is no revenue expected this financial year?

Mr PAUL TOOLE:

I will ask the chief executive if that information is there in front of her.

Ms DOHENY:

The information is not in front of me but I will take that on notice.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE:

So did you come to budget estimates without the budget papers?

The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE:

I am happy to provide them, Minister.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE:

Did you come to budget estimates without the budget papers?

Mr PAUL TOOLE:

We said we would take it on notice and we will provide that information.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE:

You came to budget estimates without the budget papers.

The Hon. SCOTT FARLOW:

The Minister is trying to provide an accurate answer to the member.

CHAIR:

Order! It is the Hon. Peter Primrose's time, Mr Shoebridge

Hilarious, you can almost hear David Shoebridge cacking himself.

While the apologists might like to describe this as a political question, go into denial and try to ignore the dreadful response, the incapacity to answer a simple and basic question about a gap in the financial statements for which you as Minister or CEO, are both responsible, is hard to comprehend.

Nothing from the Minister, nor the Office for Local Government on North Sydney nor Mid-Western but, at last, one councillor has been suspended! It’s about time, it’s been a couple of years otherwise and there is no point introducing a punitive regime that relies upon a limit of three suspensions to be banned, if no one ever gets suspended. The Minister doesn’t bother suspending anyone, even though he is clearly surrounded by dozens of likely candidates.

Apart from some boofhead at Narrabri who was suspended by order of the Chief Executive Office of Local Government Marcia Doheny on 29 May. Two years ago (yes, two years ago) on 13 September 2013, this dope slapped a Council employee across the buttocks “while making comment and laughing”. Now he has been suspended for two months. He would probably regard that as a badge of honour.

Whether Budget Estimates was embarrassing or otherwise, and whether OLG is resting on their laurels for suspending some boofhead for two months at Narrabri for an offence that took place two years earlier, the OLG took off with the threat to suspend Hurstville Council for sacking their GM (yes, Pizza Man) having been suspended since May - a threat so effective it would appear, that the Council immediately resolved to reinstate him.

But he had been suspended since May for what, on the face of it, looked like nothing more than trying to have the Council deal with its responsibilities on a property owned by the Mayor.

So, that’s a tick for our prediction of continued inaction by the regulators.

And what about one or two good news stories?

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Published: Tuesday, 29 September 2015 11:29

Of course there are good news stories. Gosford City Council has finally reached agreement with the USU, LGEA and depa over a long-standing and, by their own admission, poorly handled attempt to remove the 4% bonus payment that has been part of the salary system for 20 years.

Facing three days of arbitration at the end of this month and October, and a pretty damn good (even if I say so myself) witness statement rebutting everything the Council was putting in their evidence, agreement has now been reached to preserve $1.95 million of current spend on performance reward in an ongoing way, increased by award increases into the future. An arrangement that will see any money not spent during the performance year rolled over to the following year.

And as part of the deal, a 2% ongoing payment each year as a staff retention bonus. So, that’s another tick.

Pretty accurate predictions then last month. Try harder Nostradamus, go hard or go home!

But the absolute ripper is this …

Tamworth GM drops off on removing the nine day fortnight from existing staff

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Published: Wednesday, 26 October 2016 10:48

We’d hate to be misunderstood. We don’t necessarily target general managers who become the president of the Local Government Managers/Poseurs Association. There is a natural attraction, of course, of putting a target on general managers who spend time attacking the provisions of the Local Government State Award - whether that be to slash entitlements or costs or under the guise of advocating better management practices and getting all excited about management excellence.

But it’s always interesting to see how general managers, who do think it important to try to exercise some leadership role in LGM/PA, behave at their own Council. Does it follow that they demonstrate management excellence when they have the opportunity to do so themselves?

depa filed a dispute with Tamworth Regional Council late last year after GM Paul Bennett decided to strip away the nine day fortnight from existing staff.

We challenged him to provide any evidence that the nine day fortnight had compromised Council services. Staff had cooperatively managed it to ensure no loss of services and we were sceptical that there was any evidence to the contrary. Paul was unable to provide any evidence at all, deciding instead to have Dorothy Dix prepare a survey to local developers. Despite the survey’s prejudicial questioning and encouragement of responses that they couldn’t do business with the Council on Fridays on Mondays, he couldn’t get any evidence that way either.

But Paul is as sensitive to criticism as he is to employees not jumping and doing want he wants. He responded dramatically to our report on his treatment in the Commission in the February issue - blowing more than $15,000 by our guess on having a Senior Counsel attend for a less than one hour conference in Newcastle to have the union chastised. The GM, the deputy GM, the HR Manager all attended, all away from Tamworth for the day and obviously not providing services but happily supporting the SC trying to ban depa’s Secretary from continuing to appear in proceedings, to be locked in the stocks etc but all he got from the Commission, even with his SC, was the Commission’s agreement to something that depa had asked for on the very first occasion - namely, that subsequent proceedings be held in Tamworth.

While Paul might be sensitive to criticisms we might make, he isn’t very sensitive to what’s happening amongst his staff.

On 14 August he emailed all staff, (without the courtesy of a copy to us as the notifying union or the other unions) that the “Executive Management Team has now decided not to pursue the transitioning of individual staff away from current work arrangements.”

Sounds like the white flag going up to me. He continued that “our organisation is in a rebuilding phase following the service review process and I would prefer not to pursue the transition of existing staff to a 19 day month due to the impact it is having on our culture.”

Well, durr. Almost 12 months after the first letter telling the unions that he was removing the nine day fortnight, he suddenly realised he shouldn’t try to strip away the nine day fortnight “due to the impact it is having on our culture.” Well done Paul, it’s about time that sunk in. How could he not have anticipated that stripping away the nine day fortnight would have a negative impact on their culture?

You can’t take away an historic entitlement without evidence for doing so, nor can you attempt to bludgeon it through the consultative committee and behave in such a way to our delegate that you subsequently provide an apology.

And even though, in capitulating because it was damaging the culture, he reserved the opportunity of dealing with the area of development control slightly differently - “with an investigation into the specific issues our customers identifies a problem in that area.” Remember here that he hasn’t been able to sustain that their customers identify any problems in the development area. A little bit too much playing the player, and not the ball here.

It was a messy, embarrassing and clumsy process with conflicting messages, clarification the Council didn’t want to remove the nine day fortnight from all staff but they needed five weeks or so to work out those it did, and then five weeks later revealing it did want to remove it from everyone, etc. etc. To call it a farce, flatters it.

Now, not with a bang but a whimper, Paul has run up the white flag. This process won’t win him any LGM/PA awards for excellence in HR management.

Victories don’t come much sweeter than this one.

Next month …

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Published: Wednesday, 26 August 2015 09:30

Probably more councillors behaving badly, maybe some ICAC action at last on the appalling things happening at Mid-Western, probably more inaction from people we rely upon to properly regulate the industry but maybe one or two good news stories as well - certainly, one absolute ripper …

Why is the Office of Local Government protecting Jilly Gibson? Or is the Minister thinking a few moves ahead?

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Published: Wednesday, 26 August 2015 13:16

There’s never a dull minute at North Sydney. Last month we ran through the litany of disgraceful and embarrassing things that are happening and it just continues. We hoped, in calling for the sacking of Mayor Jilly Gibson, that the OLG and the Minister would do something. And we are not the only organisation calling for something to be done either - as we understand it, everyone is pressing both the Minister and the OLG to do something. But what’s happened and what have they done?

On 17 August we received a letter from the Chief Executive OLG, Marcia Doheny, referring to our emails of 23 and 24 July about North Sydney Council and saying this:

“I appreciate that this is a difficult situation for all parties involved. However, all individuals have a responsibility to ensure that working relationships are productive and professional despite any personal differences that may exist.”

What? Code of Conduct findings, misconduct, Council resolutions to apologise, a censure resolution by the Council, failed conflict resolution processes that make the Minister’s Performance Improvement Order a joke, a failure to disclose an interest etc etc etc, and all of it only “personal differences”?

We were disappointed. Here’s our response.

On the same day the OLG send us this letter, the Council met (with a furiously note-taking OLG manager in the gallery) and things didn’t get any better. Procedural abnormalities as the Mayor refused to accept dissent on rulings and closed the meeting to resume 10 minutes later and then the Sydney Morning Herald revealed on 19 August, what appeared like the Mayor having failed to disclose an interest over the building of a road to a house across a public reserve - a house that is owned by two people whose signatures appeared in the hundred signatures of members to allow Mayor Jilly Gibson to form a political party. While the Council supported the road, some councillors sought to rescind that approval having discovered the link between the Mayor and the two members of her political party.

Then there was some to-ing and fro-ing about whether the signatories had really signed (if they hadn’t, who had signed on their behalf?) and then resignations from those people from the political party, as if that removed the need to disclose an interest. Then, somewhat hilariously, three days after the meeting the Mayor did disclose the interest. That’s a first, a retrospective disclosure. And the Mayor wanted the retrospective disclosure incorporated in the minutes. What a farce.

What would need to happen as local government is dragged further into disrepute, for the OLG to think it would be appropriate?

Read more ...

Uh oh, look out!

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Published: Tuesday, 25 August 2015 17:51

It may not be the most attractive analogy, but let’s face it, if you’re walking and a dog has left a deposit on the path in front of you, you can tell what it is immediately. You don’t need to examine it up close, test it with a prod, or a sniff, or how it feels under your shoe to seek further information.

It’s a dog poo, and you should avoid it.

So, when we discovered what the Office of Local Government has in mind for changes to the employment provisions of the Local Government Act to coincide with potential amalgamations, we didn’t really need to wonder too much what it was.

The OLG has proposed that “a set of topic based information papers will be published electronically setting out the details of the proposed changes and the rationale for them” in October but we can call it now - look out, you don’t need to examine it up close, give it a prod or wait for some miscreant in the Office of Local Government to prepare an information paper to tell you that you can happily step in it.

We know that the Government wants changes to the Local Government Act in place and probably new boundaries in time for the local government elections in September 2016. We also know that the Minister for Local Government has assured the unions that whatever happens, employees will remain employed under the Local Government State Award. But it was not until what was intended to be a confidential document prepared by the OLG was tabled by a witness before the Upper House Inquiry into local government, that we discovered how bad the things were that we didn’t know.

By marvellous misadventure and a lucky question, USU northern Manager Stephen Hughes was asked by Standing Committee member David Shoebridge whether he was aware of any proposed changes to employment being contemplated as part of the reform process and, by enormous coincidence, he did.

He had come from a meeting of the Ministerial Advisory Group that morning (LGNSW, LGMA and the USU) where a document prepared by the Office of Local Government and titled The Development of the new Local Government Act Phase 1 Amendments”, had been circulated. Unwise to tell porkies to a parliamentary committee, Stephen had no option but to acknowledge he did and when asked if he had it, because he had come straight from MAG, he did. And it made its way into the official documentation tabled to the Committee.

If the OLG wanted to do things in secret, it would have been smarter not to give anyone that document until the Standing Committee had finished its public hearings.

You can see what’s in the document using this link.

Read more ...

Has Local Government Super dumped uranium and nuclear yet?

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Published: Thursday, 30 July 2015 12:40

Not yet but, leaving that aside for a moment, LGS has continued its high reputation as a responsible investor. Again this year it was the top rated fund internationally in the Asset Owners’ Disclosure Project which ranks institutional investors across the world on the disclosure of carbon risk and steps they are taking to manage it.

The Fund has just won Super Ratings Infinity Award for leadership in sustainable and responsible investment for the fourth time. The $9 billion fund now has more than $5 billion of members’ savings in sustainable and responsible investment strategies, including shares, private equity and direct property assets, the largest commitment of any super fund in Australia.

The Sustainable Australian Shares option in the fund returned 20.87% in the 2013/14 financial year until May – partially because the fund was an early adopter of moving out of the mining industry which, shortly thereafter, became an underperforming sector.

LGS is the only superannuation fund to win the Infinity Award four times and ranking number one in the world again in the Asset Owners’ Disclosure Project remains its most significant and international achievement.

But sadly the fund retains its new commitment to nuclear and uranium stocks. Our representative director on the LGS Board Sam Byrne is monitoring the returns as they may be affected by this unpleasant investment category and while LGS satisfied a couple of zealot board members fascinated with nuclear energy, it doesn’t mean LGS will always be committed to that energy source.

It’s hard to regard nuclear energy as a “clean” alternative energy option. Certainly Germany doesn’t - regarded as the “Green superpower” of Europe, they are phasing out nuclear power stations and anticipate that all will be closed around 2022.

If Germany can slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by 2020 (and by 55% by 2030 and 80-95% by 2050) and replace them with renewable energy, there is a lesson here - not only for Australian policymakers, but for the investment strategists within our own super fund.

It’s now 330 days since the fund resolved to lift the screen preventing investment in nuclear and uranium that had been in place for a decade. While this was done under the illusion that nuclear power generation resulted in zero carbon emissions, and that was all that mattered, (apart from the astonishing emissions involved in the construction of power stations) our director on LGS Board Sam Byrne, is monitoring how the removal of the screen affects returns and whether this compensates for the reputational damage already done.  And there is always the unmanageable risk.

As Chernobyl and Fukushima showed, you never know …

We hate it when members disappear – and it wastes our time too

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Published: Thursday, 30 July 2015 12:35

We like to run a pretty tight ship in the depa office that we spend a lot of time chasing members who disappear and go to another Council or just disappear generally or go off on parental leave. We know that when women are about to give birth, one of the last things they would be thinking about would be contacting the union to put their membership on hold. But we have an arrangement where women on parental leave can put their membership on hold until a return to work because we have found a large percentage of members doing this need help on their return to ensure suitable part-time working arrangements.

We have strict rules about unfinancial members and the main reason that members become unfinancial is that they leave to take parental leave and payroll deductions stop.

We would be eternally grateful and would save a lot of time if you could please let us know if:

• you are going on maternity leave/parental leave and would like to put your membership on hold
• you have returned from maternity leave/parental leave and are resuming payroll deductions 
• you are moving to another Council
• you are leaving the industry entirely.

Please don’t disappear on us.

depa’s submission to the Legislative Council Local Government Enquiry

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Published: Thursday, 30 July 2015 14:03

The Legislative Council has established a General Purpose Standing Committee to enquire into Fit for the Future and the potential for local government reforms including compulsory boundary changes. The final report is due on 24 August.

The Committee will consider a range of issues which are relevant to the interests of employees in the industry - including “evidence of the impact of forced mergers on municipal employment, including aggregate redundancy costs”.

This is a perfect opportunity to develop and enhance our policy view in an expanded version of the article we ran in May’s depaNews. And a good opportunity to get our Dirty Harry/Mike Baird image and mischief to a wider public.

Here is our submission.

We drag the dawdlers at Sydney City into the modern world (and watch them waste a good employee)

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Published: Thursday, 30 July 2015 12:26

This is the third article in eight months resulting from the glacier-like, sloth-like, snail-like pace of modernising the City’s approach to critical human resources issues. First as a candidate in our Worst HR in Local Government issue in December, then in reporting on a dispute we had filed about two issues where the Council had simply failed to respond in anything remotely approaching a reasonable time frame.

Our dispute was about two issues. First, their policy on “Other Work”, regulated under section 353 of the Local Government Act where the Council, contrary to and exceeding the intention of section 353 had been requiring employees wanting to do work in addition to their council job to declare and seek approval for anything, whether it “relates to or conflicts with” the Council job or not. Micro-managing, prurient, invading of privacy and then seemingly incapable of meeting, discussing, reviewing and getting it right in a reasonable time frame. And second, the old-fashioned and discredited approach to putting people at a certain salary level on term contracts, whether they are permanent employees or whether they are employed conditional upon grant funding or projects.

In the dispute reported in January, the President of the IRC Justice Boland, never one to tolerate dawdling and a lack of application, directed that there be an agreed policy between the Council and the unions by 10 March - an eight week timeframe where we observed that the people we deal with in HR couldn’t get a lunch ordering by that date. At the same time we discovered that Sydney had this inappropriate policy, we also discovered that so did Wyong. But unlike Sydney, Wyong was able to discuss, comprehend, identify the problem and resolve it in a bit over four weeks.

The President directed that the City have an agreed policy with the unions on term contracts by 21 April, only three months away - enough to cause apoplexy for those bureaucrats getting in the way of resolving the matter and, for want of a better image, far too interested in slowing down the snail than doing things in a timely way. “Whooa, not too fast there”.

The President’s rocket and valuable assistance from LGNSW meant that a new section 353 policy, consistent with the legislation and satisfying our needs, was developed and only a month late. But things didn’t go so well with the review of term contracts.

The Local Government (State) Award in 2010 recognised the risks for councils in employing people on term contracts where that is inappropriate. A range of decisions in industrial tribunals had found that rolling over contracts or artificially creating terms for people whose employment is ongoing and continuous is inappropriate. The 2010 Award identify the areas in which Councils could employ people on term contracts - generally when people are employed to do work of a fixed duration, or on funding for a fixed duration.

Our interest had been pricked by the City’s treatment of one of their most valuable and entrepreneurial employees. A member of ours who had one three-year term rolled over, and at the end of the second three-year term was told by his director (a person who should know) that he would get a third term. They even sat down to work out what he would do over that period. Unfortunately, the director was out of the loop on funding issues and, after offering a three-year term, the City reneged on it. We contested it, the three-year term was offered but the City was always going to terminate it after 12 months.

It’s now terminated and we have an agreed termination payment for the member concerned but this also highlighted the City’s total failure in managing valuable human capital. Being astonishingly and painfully slow is one thing, but wasting and mismanaging talent and skills is worse. Our member was responsible for establishing the world-renowned Small Bars Program, the Food Trucks program and the app and he developed and presented Small Business 101 - an overwhelmingly popular monthly event where up to 160 people would come along from small and medium business wanting to know how they can work with the City and what the City could offer. That sounds like valuable human capital (as the HR professionals (sic) describe it), however you look at it.

Bloody hopeless is a reasonable way of describing their treatment of this valuable entrepreneur - and in a climate where the NSW Government wants to nail the current Lord Mayor and her regime by compelling business owners to vote, removing this connection and service to business won’t do the Lord Mayor and her regime any favours. The programmes Richard instituted and ran are iconic achievements that define the City. What a waste of a great talent.

In the Commission last week we could report that the Council has all but agreed by policy to introduce similar restrictions to those which operate in the State Award - something which will have immediate implications for a substantial proportion of the 400 employees on term contracts. The contracts will be reviewed as they fall due and, if they don’t satisfy the tests in the State Award, then the employees will be acknowledged to be permanent employees and that status will operate from the first contract with the City. This is a significant change for the better – benefitting employees and the City.

All that it needs now is for the City’s Executive to endorse the settlement on 13 August. This is a significant modernising change in the Council with advantages for both the City and the employees. Sure, the President of the IRC wanted it done by 21 April, but it’s taken more than double that period of time and we await, with high expectations, the snail to deliver the agreement next month.