In the last week, we have seen the Huon’s councillors further isolate the mayor by voting to ensure he was not elected to any council committees. That was capped with excluding him from being elected ex officio on all committees.
Now the minister has used parliamentary privilege to suggest the mayor should resign, which gives the wider community the idea the mayor is at fault. The Huon Valley community know that this is just not true.
Minister Gutwein cannot sack the mayor. He can only sack the entire council, not an individual.
• Why should the only sane voice be made the scapegoat?
• What's the political imperative here?
Yes, your guess is as good as anyone's. It's certainly nothing at all that the public is being made aware of. Neither is it anything Peter Coad has done it would seems. However, the Council is broken and the people are being very poorly served on the evidence!?
In a Press Release from Cr Peter Coad, Mayor of the Huon Valley Council — September 15 –
Mayor Coad, said that he had no intention of resigning. Mayor Coad was responding to Minister for Local Government Peter Gutwein’s call on him in Parliament to stand down.
The mayor said that he had told Mr Gutwein, in a letter on Tuesday
(September 13), that he was no longer willing to participate in the mediation process ordered by the Minister on June 15 last, in which Huon Valley Council had been ordered to implement seven Ministerial Directions.
- See more about that
HERE
Then there is the petition
"Implement the Major Recommendations of the Huon Valley Board of Inquiry" Its goal is to reach 500 signatures and it seems it needs more support. Back in June 14 Bob Hawkins in Tasmanian Times
[LINK] wrote a piece
“Huon Valley Guessing Games: It’s time to act, Mr Gutwein” The piece drew 33 comments and in it Bob Hawkins
said “So the Huon Valley Council is not going to be dismissed. I didn’t think the minister had the bottle to give our valley a brand new start, and it looks like it’s proving to be so. Haven’t heard the details of Gutwein’s statement yet, but I’m hoping it deals with all the more controversial issues, among them: the Cygnet Caravan Park; the long-ignored broken asbestos in Cygnet Town Hall; a close analysis of all factors involved in the appearance of an unapproved and illegal jetty at Franklin; allegedly buried asbestos on the Franklin waterfront; a forensic assessment (matched with invoices) of all HVC credit card statements (not just the mayors’ and the GMs’) these past 15 years . . . I’m hoping the minister’s decision also includes a squeaky clean independent actuary, or similar, to do the investigating.” It's worth going back and reading this in the light of current events.
Well as they say, the rest is history but now it’s way past time to do something, make an omelet, and break a few bloody eggs. The electorate will thank Minister Gutwein for summoning up ‘the bottle’ to do what needs to be done and should have been done long ago. Imagine that he did just summon up the gonads to ‘do the job’ where might he start?
However, it needs to be said, and very clearly, that this is all about 'Local Govt' rather than just Huon Council's dysfunctionalism.
Huon Council is a member of a ever growing club of variously dysfunctional cum delinquent cum unrepresentational Councils in Tasmania. Anyone living with one's jurisdiction will know which one are the members.
Economically Tasmania is, and it is well and truly understood that it is, 'over governed' and consequently poorly governed and is consequently administered less well – sometimes very badly – than the constituency deserve. Hello! Hello! ... there is no breaking news in any of this.
The millions of dollars paid to non-performing Councillors, Aldermen and Council functionaries ( dysfunctionaries?) could be spent on employing people who could actually make a contribution to growing the economy – that apparent Peter Gutwein wants – rather than churning salaries with benefits. There are many people working for councils in Tasmania who 'earn their keep' but they tend to be situated well down the food chain – underlings' underlings for the most part.
Minister Gutwein needs to make history and do to all councils what he should have done to Huon Council months ago – SACK THE LOT OF'EM!
As an interim measure he could appoint a number of 'commissioners' supported by a team of administrators least likely to 'swing the lead' and who held 'the relevant expertise' to get on with what needs to be done – and catch up on lost time. This would be an ideal opportunity to 'flush out the duds and dross'.
Yes, yes, yes, this is an audacious proposition but on the evidence when something is is in as much trouble as Tasmania's local governance is, well it's going to require that sort of thing to sort it all out.
In fact it might not stop there since there is now talk of increasing the size of the lower house. The opportunity might well be taken to rethink governance in Tasmania in a 21st Century kind of way and look at the interrelationships of the three tiers of governance and do a bit of cutting and schutting.
From where we are now there are so many opportunities to do things more effectively and to employ our resources much better and it seems that most of what is in the way is the 'status quo'. It might be a waste of time qouting Voltaire but what the heck ... “One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion”.
