THE HISTORY CHANNEL James Plumridge

From now on it’s good news week every fortnight

Congratulations are due to this blog’s competitors, Mark Lloyd and the team at York and Districts Community Matters, on the improved style and appearance of their now fortnightly broadsheet publication.

I say ‘competitors,’ but of course there’s no comparing us so far as reach and influence are concerned.  Our readership is global, while theirs is merely local.  

This week, adding to its already extensive presence throughout Australia, the blog has recruited readers in the USA, France, Spain and perhaps most surprisingly, Russia. 

And it’s less than three weeks since it set up shop as the real voice of York!

The revamped YDCM, no doubt at the direction of Commissioner Best, seems to specialise in good news stories.  Well, if this blog’s rapid rise to prominence on the global stage isn’t a good news story, I don’t know what is.

If Mr. Lloyd is interested in following up on the blog’s international significance, I will be happy to make myself available for interview, supposing of course that my employer, the York Consortium, permits.  For this purpose, I may be contacted by email at wildwood@westnet.com.au .

Another good news story is the return of the older blog, which began life around the middle of last year as a vehicle for the ‘leaked’ Fitz Gerald Report.  You can find it at http://shireofyork6302.blogspot.com.au/ .

 

Fitz Gerald Report—suppression unofficially lifted (again)

Readers will recall that early last year York Shire Council commissioned Mr. Mike Fitz Gerald to enquire into the activities of former CEO Ray Hooper.  As things turned out, other shire officials, and some councillors—notably Tony Boyle and Pat Hooper—got caught in Mr. Fitz Gerald’s net. 

That enquiry culminated in a damning report, which a secret meeting of three councillors, each of them adversely mentioned in the report, speedily convened to suppress without bothering to declare an interest.  In this, they were encouraged and supported by their cronies in the WA Department of Local Government and Communities (DLGC).

 

However, some public-spirited individual took the initiative to launch the report into cyberspace for all to read.   This made the minister for local government and senior executives of his department very cross.  They retaliated by suspending the council and appointing a commissioner in its stead. 

If you haven’t read the report, you can do so at http://shireofyork6302fitzgerald.blogspot.com.au/ .  

The book of revelations

What Fitz Gerald revealed (oh all right then, alleged), to nobody’s surprise, was wrongdoing by Ray Hooper and other shire celebrities on an almost industrial scale.  It was wrongdoing that had left many people scared and badly hurt and in some cases seriously out of pocket. 

In recent months, I have been plied with an Everest of documents, many obtained by way of the tortuous Freedom of Information process, that support Fitz Gerald’s findings.  

 I have spoken to York residents who having somehow aroused CEO Hooper’s ire, for example by asking questions about expenditure on his corporate credit card, were persecuted by him and plagued so maliciously by other shire employees acting under his direction that they felt compelled to shut down a thriving business in Avon Terrace.

I have listened to hair-raising accounts of the bullying and bad temper allegedly demonstrated by former shire presidents Tony Boyle and Pat Hooper in their management of public question time. For Mr. Boyle, that behaviour led to public censure by the Local Government Standards Panel. 

The chair of the Panel is Brad Jolly, the DLGC’s ‘probity’ guru.  This is the only instance known to me of Mr. Jolly doing the right thing by the people of York, which indicates that he and his co-panellists must have found Mr. Boyle’s behaviour shocking indeed.

So you can imagine my astonishment when I read in this week’s issue of Mr. Lloyd’s newspaper, in the section entitled ‘Voice of York’, a statement from the Commissioner, James Best, that the Corruption and Crime Commission ‘had finished its investigation into allegations of misconduct at the Shire, with no adverse findings made against Shire officers or councillors’.

Readers, have you ever experienced the weird feeling of being suddenly translated into a parallel universe where all the rules governing everyday existence have transmogrified into their polar opposites?  

If so, you will have a glimmer of how I felt on reading the Commissioner’s words.  On the one hand, I had seen ample documentary evidence to the contrary of what he seemed to be saying.  On the other hand, how could I as a rank outsider, a humble citizen peering, often incredulously, into the labyrinths of power, reject the findings of the CCC? 

Didn’t evidence count for anything any more?  What about the graft and the bullying?  What about the sale of the old convent, still a matter crying out for proper investigation?  What about mismanagement (to put it mildly) relating to construction of the YRCC, with its huge cost blowouts and devastating impact on local businesses? 

What about ‘jobs for the boys’, including a young fellow with a criminal record and just freed from jail who wasn’t qualified for the job he got but luckily for him was friendly with a senior official of the shire?

Fitz Gerald allegations not investigated by CCC 

Well, as it turned out, what the Commissioner wrote in ‘The Voice of York’ had absolutely nothing to with any of those ‘historical issues’, as he and the DLGC like to think of them.  Those were not the allegations to which the CCC had turned its incisive attention.

That became clear to me on reading online news reports from the ABC and The West Australian.  The ABC report, after referring to the Council’s suspension ‘following ongoing concerns about its ability to provide good governance’, cited ‘specific misconduct allegations… made against the shire, before it was suspended’.

In context, this must surely mean allegations made—by Minister Simpson, his departmental advisers and disgruntled senior members of the shire administration—against Shire President Reid and his supporters on council in the period leading up to the council’s suspension.

True to form, Commissioner Best said nothing to clarify the issue.  I think he wants us to believe that the CCC has cleared Shire councillors and officials of all wrongdoing, including all the bad things that happened during the dark days of the Hooper-Boyle-Hooper ascendancy.

He told the ABC he was happy that the ‘issues’ had been ‘dealt with appropriately’, but he was ‘unable to outline the details of the misconduct allegations, except that they were concerning governance and administrative practices’.  

Actually, his words were ‘I’m happy we’ve dealt with them appropriately’, thereby staking a tenuous claim to a bit of such credit as may be drawn from the CCC’s decision.

NOTE:  Since this article was posted, a reader has written to me pointing out that Mr Best's comments as reported by the ABC were even more misleading than I have indicated.  The ABC online news editor has appended the following clarification, which I missed, to the report:  'This story was originally published stating that the Shire of York had been cleared of allegations of misconduct by the CCC.  This is not the case.  The CCC review determined that the process the shire undertook to handle allegations of misconduct was appropriate - the shire has not been cleared of the allegations' (emphasis added).

So what were the allegations that the Shire of York wasn't actually cleared of? 

Credit squeeze

Mr. Best seems to have quite a reputation for claiming credit where it might not be entirely due.  You will have read among the comments on this blog that during one of his workshops he claimed some credit for the 29-storey block of flats planned for the South Perth peninsula.

He is, as we all know, a former mayor of the City of South Perth.  He held that office for two years, from 2010 to 2011.

To the best of my knowledge, developers applied to the city for permission to build the flats after Mr. Best had ceased to be mayor.   The present mayor and council are on record as having expressed strong opposition to the development.

So if Mr. Best did have something to do with it, it would have been in the teeth of opposition from his former friends and colleagues on the South Perth city council.

From what I can gather, most residents of South Perth detest the proposed development.  If Mr. Best continues to claim even a smidgin of credit for it, he may put himself in danger of being thrown off the top storey by an infuriated mob.

In the modern world, with its intense competition for fame, jobs and money, it pays to keep telling people how wonderful you are and how awe-inspiring are your achievements.  That’s why we have FIGJAM social media websites like Linked In.

Mr. Best has also claimed credit for transforming Toodyay and Fremantle.  I wouldn’t mind betting he’ll be telling the world before long what a wonderful job he did in York. 

 

I get the feeling that if the Chinese ever land an astronaut on Uranus, Mr. Best will claim some credit for that, too. 

STOP PRESS

Who takes care of the caretaker, when the caretaker’s busy taking care of itself

Just as I was tacking the final flourishes on to the foregoing article, my wife came back from the shops with today’s West Australian (June 18, 2015).

Under the headline ‘CCC MISCONDUCT’, the paper describes a report by Parliamentary Inspector Michael Murray on the unlawful activities of ‘a rogue unit’ –the covert Operational Support Unit—of CCC officers.

Mr. Murray is reported as saying that ‘The systemic nature of the conduct investigated revealed a disturbing culture of entitlement and unaccountability…contrary to the standards and values of public officers, particularly those employed by the State’s anti-corruption body’.

If only there was a Parliamentary Inspector commissioned to investigate ‘the disturbing culture of entitlement and unaccountability’ that despite Mr. Best’s protestations to the contrary in ‘Voice of York’ still operates in the Shire of York, much to the dismay of some of the people who work there. 

 

Never mind ‘Voice of York’.  Read ‘The Real Voice of York’ which tells it like it really is.