TROUBLE AT TOWN HALL ... AGAIN

It turns out that Launceston Town Hall default position on 'confidentiality' is coming back, as they say in the bush and in the vernacular, to bite the good Councillors on the bum.  Confidentiality is the default position on just about everything at Town Hall and as often as not if a ratepayer, or a developer who is not in the 'inner circle' seeks information that is contentious in the in the slightest, they are bound to find that under some ruse or other it is "confidential, personal in confidence, commercial in confidence, whatever".

Typically it is so given that SECTION 62.2 of the Local Govt. Act prescribing the " Functions and powers of general manager" says:

(1)  The general manager has the following functions:

(a) to implement the policies, plans and programs of the council;

(b) to implement the decisions of the council;

(c) to be responsible for the day-to-day operations and affairs of the council;

(d) to provide advice and reports to the council on the exercise and performance of its powers and functions and any other matter requested by the council;

(e) to assist the council in the preparation of the strategic plan, annual plan, annual report and assessment of the council's performance against the plans;

(f) to coordinate proposals for the development of objectives, policies and programs for the consideration of the council;

(g) to liaise with the mayor on the affairs of the council and the performance of its functions;

(h) to manage the resources and assets of the council;

(i) to perform any other function the council decides.

(2)  The general manager may do anything necessary or convenient to perform his or her functions under this or any other Act.

It is only worth reiterating this here and now because very soon we will see Councillors telling the world that they knew 'nothing of all this' just as Sgt. Schults in the television comedy series, 'Hogan's Heroes', was typically inclined so to do. 

And of course the 'Dickens Principle' that says "ask no questions and you'll be told no lies" also come into play.

We've already seen the political blame shifting on display with the city's CEO/GM along with the Federal Member for Bass, and the Mayor too sort of, claiming that it's all 'A OK' to be applying for a $10 MILLION grant under the guise of 'DROUGHT RELIEF' when the money is/was intended for a development totally divorced from anything remotely resembling 'DROUGHT RELIEF'.

Somehow the word got out, and with community outrage, Town Hall is bust a gut trying to explain the inexplicable. Councillors are pulling the 'Sgt Schults' line and ducking for cover under anything handy and convenient. When quizzed, "surely if Council is applying for a $10 Mil Grant you must have been informed of that" ... but, but, but nobody ever said that it was "drought money" and after all it is all about jobs, jobs, jobs! We need the money, the city need the jobs!

Well maybe, but not at the expense of communities that have just come out of an unprecedented drought where cities were having drinking water trained in, were on unprecedented water restrictions, were showing/bathing at the minimum, were using grey water to keep plants alive while they stood and watched the rivers in their community dry up, orchards die, stock die and as they witnessed huge fish kills.

The very notion that LAUNCESTON at this time, deserved or needed ANY drought relief funding is absurd in the extreme. It is humiliating and diminshing that it was conceived of – and deemed to be OK!

All this 'stuff' is typically discussed in CLOSED COUNCIL and confidentially at workshops which lets the Councillors off the hook IF they were told the source of the grant funds. The combined confidentiality protocols and the SECTION 62 provisions leaves the community right out of the loop in regard to any 'critical discourse'. 

Anyway, the buck must land on the CEO/GM's and Mayor's desks as presumably they signed off on the application since it doesn't appear as if this matter was discussed in and signed of in, OPEN COUNCIL. Yet 'the buck' actually does land right there, right there, and not just to settle there lightly, or temporarily, before it flies off to some other scape goat's desk – the one employed to take the blame and any unanticipated heat arising. She/he is the one that gets sacked!

If it turns out that if it is said that this mob at Town Hall has their 'morality and ethics'  likened to say a 'pride of alley cats eating up everything as they go' well, it'd hardly be surprising. 

Forgiveness is going to be very hard to garner under the circumstances but with $10 Mil in the mix, and who knows whose fingers are in the till, perhaps 'forgiveness' is not really being looked for. There are some very uncomfortable and unwelcomed, questions arising.

The word about town is that the CEO/GM seems to hold the view that a Council can do all kinds of things a business would not, or could not, because the 'profit imperative just isn't there'. Councils can always pass 'the cost' on to ratepayers you see – and ratepayers must pay.

There is a whole lot of accountability to be measured out and looking the other way cannot be an option. Launceston should not have applied for this money, should not have been offered it, and now it is inconceivable that it should be accepting it no matter what the cities fiscal problems might be. And whatever they are, none of them are to do with DROUGHT.