Hon. Colin Barnett
Premier of Western Australia
Dear Premier,
YOUR URGENT ATTENTION
Your Ref: 24-503507/JH
Incl: SHIRE OF YORK RESPONSE TO THE ‘SHOW CAUSE NOTICE’ LETTER FROM MINISTER SIMPSON
The strength of the rebuttal of the content of your Minister’s “Show Cause Notice” by the Shire of York (the Shire)suggests that he has been grossly misinformed by the Department of Local Government and Communities (the Department).
The fact that it the Shire has called for a “ROYAL COMMISSION” style investigation into the allegations made by Minister Simpson testifies to the veracity of this rebuttal.
Given this, and continued media interest, it may well place Minister Simpson in an extremely invidious position regarding his credibility in handling this portfolio. This coming on top of the Dean Nalder affair.
The alleged breaches of local government protocol by the Shire as claimed by Minister Simpson, and rejected by this shire council, certainly occurred from 2008-2013 and is well documented. These documents are, or should be, in the safe custody and control of the Department and various other government departments.
The person who has been Director General of the Department since March 2008, is Ms. Jennifer Matthews.
Ms. Matthews bears the ultimate internal responsibility for the performance of her department or lack thereof. Externally, the quality and reliability of information resources supplied by her to the Minister impacts directly on the public perception of his performance and the overall performance of your Government.
I suggest to you that there is a prima-face case suggesting that Ms. Matthews and the Department have fallen well short of providing proper, well researched and credible advice to the Minister.
In future the Minister may well have great difficulty in explaining to the public of Western Australia, how?and why? he got so many of his allegations so wrong!
Your sincerely
David Taylor
Shire of York Ratepayer.
December 12, 2014
Good on you David.
ReplyDeleteReckon one or two Public Servants might be in a spot of bother.
We may see things start to crumble from the top down.
I don't think so !!!
DeleteThe very damaging article in Thursday's West Australian needs to be refuted and the correct information brought to light. Can you - or have you already - informed the various media there is a story here that requires truth brought to it?
ReplyDeleteJennifer Mathews has a legal background not political, this was a bone of contention in some circles at the time of her appointment as Director General of the Department. JM has been turning a blind eye to issues in York for too long, now it's come back to haunt her. The workers are all busy trying to protect the queen bee, hence the show cause smokescreen.
ReplyDeleteThe Minister and Director General are both responsible for the statutory powers and duties provided by Part 8 of the Local Government Act - end of story. They have no problems charging the Council with a range of crimes to support suspension but they have failed to properly deal with the issues at York for many years in accordance with their own powers and duties. The double standard is staggering.
ReplyDeleteThere is no statutory beast called a probity audit. This is a creation by the DLG to be seen to be doing something while doing nothing apart from giving some appearance of official action to justify the suspension of the Council. Why were the DLG manipulators not properly authorised to investigate using the statutory powers available? That will now come and bite them on the bum. But will this also deny York any hope of an independent authorised inquiry in future as the DLG cannot now avoid the perception of any future inquiry in which it is involved in any way will be biased to protect it and avoid the truth.
It seems the DLG have invented a "Time Line" as its investigation tool to justify the manipulators conclusions. But where is the ACTUAL EVIDENCE to support any of their biased claims to justify their predestined objective of ignoring all previous allegations and just concentrate on this year and the current President. That is where their tool is exposed for what it is - the time line is biased and so is its conclusions. A reasonable question is what is missing from the timeline? A simple example is the apparent tape recording of a meeting. Where is the evidence that supports the allegation or which can show without reasonable that the Presidents rebuttal now is not true? Where was natural justice provided before the report? If the manipulators had been properly authorised (and why not) and the evidence of all participants taken on oath there would at least be some basis for such a damning claim by the DLG. But any use of such powers now will be terminally tainted by the very apparent bias and manipulation that exists. Not perception - actual bias due to the time line. The failure to conduct a proper authorised inquiry before this bumbling "probity audit" has doomed any attempt for any avoidance of a proper inquiry being subject to serious community doubts of bias and cover up.
That is what the Minister and the DG have achieved - a bumbling attempt to put this to bed without any proper inquiry into the significant allegations that have existed for years. The Fitzgerald report at least documented the litany of allegations - which have been conveniently ignored by the "time line" tactic. A look at the DLG website and its inquiry reports (these will be pulled shortly) show how an authorised inquiry was conducted for Shark Bay on grounds that fade into insignificance compared to York, but then the Belmont inquiry reports an authorised inquiry into a litany of serious issues that make York pale into insignificance - but - wait for it - no suspension of the Council. The DLG website demonstrates that it has no integrity, consistency or respect.
If Simpson is not aware of what is going on (which I find hard to believe), he needs to wake up very quickly. He has the power to order an inquiry into any local governments affairs - if the alleged misuse of credit cards and the Fitzgerald report did not warrant such an inquiry what does? The problem now is any such an inquiry will have DLG fingerprints all over it.
Well Minister and DG, the new time line has now commenced from the start of this whole sorry saga - but the focus will be on you. We have access to FOI and Parliament and the media and the truth will come out. You wish to trash proper process and remove a democratically elected government based on a fatally flawed "probity audit" and a cleverly developed "time line", but you cannot avoid us. The Shire is all the people of York and you have failed us for too long.
Yes, let the new time line - exposing the truth - begin.
ReplyDeleteWell spoken; and the last thing we the people of York want is some sort of slipping back to the dark days of intimidation and failure to be open and accountable that reigned for about 9 years. The targeting of the man who was trying to help break that nexus and allow open honest communication without fear or favour, to utilise community skills and ideas and so bring York forward, was despicable. So was the energy with which the 'opposers' tirelessly worked towards the goal of 'bringing him down' in the hope of restoring their dominance.
ReplyDeleteBy analogy, when there is a family with a member controlling it through dysfunctional behaviour, it is a known syndrome that if the dysfunctional member gets therapy and improves, the family so used to the dysfunction behaves in ways that lead the person back into that dysfunction — because they had got used to the dynamics of dysfunction and they don't like change; for change (even for the better) can be harder to deal with than the old dysfunction to which they have become accustomed.
York is full of highly accomplished and talented people, from a range of fields. Give them a chance, and they will achieve much. So will a good leader if he is not cut down, and a good Council if the venom that has welled up dissipates.
The dark days will never happen again - the spot light is on high beam.
ReplyDeleteThose involved in metering out intimidation and bullying finally realised they were about to be exposed, which is why they resigned.
Yes, there are highly qualified, talented and some very brave people in York, many of which are prepared to stand with our Shire President to see this through.