CONFIDENTIALITY – COUNCIL MEETING
Cr Fraser – “Over two years ago on 13 October 2014 this Council abolished it’s “behind closed doors” confidential Special Purposes Committee and Council went on to impose strict controls on the CEO’s designation of confidential matters.
That was precipitated by a matter concerning the nature and extent and escalating cost of the Southern Peninsula Aquatic centre project and the community had a right to know what was being decided with their money and on their behalf.
So here we are two years later with our CEO designating this important report on the scope and function of the Audit Committee Charter and what its councillor members can and cannot raise by way of ‘any issue they believe relevant’. For that is what they are entitled to do under the present Charter adopted by Council as recently as February this year.
No confidential grounds or reasons for designating this report confidential are specified by the CEO. This is to designate a matter as confidential contrary to the Local Government Act section 77 and contrary to our resolution abolishing the Special Purposes Committee which requires the CEO to state his grounds or reasons.
Unfortunately this appears to be part of a recent and increasing regressive move on the part of this Council.
I need only refer to the 6 June majority resolution of Council to adopt the Councillor Code of Conduct which went way beyond the statutory definition of confidential information clamping down on discussion of material marked “confidential information” or which by its content “could be reasonably considered to be of a confidential nature”. This Code went even further and prohibited “criticism of the manner in which councillors exercise their vote in Council”.
And now we have the 11 July 2016 resolution of Council and now this management report which boldly challenges the function and independence of the Audit Committee and my right under the Audit Committee Charter and as a member of the Audit Committee to raise any issue I believe relevant.
In another instance, management overlooked to provide a copy of a relevant 14 December 2015 Council resolution to Council’s lawyers and they enquired into an earlier 14 September 2015 resolution. Truly bizarre. The resultant legal report to the Audit Committee was entirely compromised, indeed wholly irrelevant, useless and a waste of ratepayers money.
So too, the 7 March 2016 legal advice to Council concerning councillors’ conferences and seminars expenses was entirely compromised when management did not provide to our lawyers the management reports to Council clearly detailing their knowledge and understanding of Council’s policy limits on such expenses.
These omissions now appear to be commonplace as I recently searched in vain for the minuted statutory Assemblies of Councillors dealing with these issues on 21 March and 18 April.
So, I ask, is the sort of council we want? – where our vital “checks and balances” governance structure is dealt with confidentally by this Council and not in accordance with the Act, where relevant and probative documents are not provided by management to our lawyers and their advice and reports are compromised, where our democratic right and freedom of speech to discuss and bring these important matters to the attention of the ratepayers and public is stamped out.
I would encourage all those councillors and members of the community who care deeply about our civil rights, democratic freedoms and the financial and governance integrity of this Council to cast out such regressive behaviour. I cannot support the confidentially of this management report item considered in a council meeting closed to the public.”