IS GRAEME SIMPSON JUST ACTING?

The Local Government Managers Association, LGMA, could be described as another tentacle of the Local Government employer/employee octopus.

In a case of ‘ad nauseam’, this self-confessed leading professional association for Chief-Executive-Officers’, throughout Australia, the Keeling and Christmas Islands and any other Local Government Area, rocky outcrop in between, spouts the typical mantra defining its undying commitment to the development of, and improvement of, local government management. Of course there is the usual ‘cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die’ promise of setting high professional and ethical standards and assuring its members are at the forefront of change and innovation.

Does the ratepayer have access to information showing the LGMA members meet any of these supposed KPI’s?-of course not!

The LGMA, lists Bruce Walker, Matthew Humphrey, Gary Clark, Ian Hill and Carl Askew as the Acting
CEO’s in WA.  A familiar name but maybe not the same person, Mike Fitzgerald, is reported to have the same gig in the old gold-mining metropolis of Menzies.

All the rest are listed as full-blown CEO’s, including, Mr. Graeme Simpson, named as being the Chief Executive Officer of the Shire of York- on this day of  August , 2015. No ‘Acting’ here says the LGMA.

Last year the DLGC’s, Jenni Law, proved, in writing, she did not know what year it was, the spelling of her own occupation, and her Christian name looks a bit suspect too. There appears to be no (lack of numeracy and literacy skill) impediment to her career as a highly paid public servant, seriously interfering in the local government democratic process.

Now we have the ultimate professional association representing local government managers (LGMA) not knowing exactly what one of its members’ occupational-status is. In instances like this ‘Acting’ and CEO are polar opposites, synonym versus antonym.

Of course, the other alternative is that 
no-one has bothered to tell the York community it has a Chief Executive Officer who is not ‘Acting’ and could be in the job longer than anyone expects?

Or, it is just the usual blunder, boo-boo, clanger, stuff-up, even abject failure by another fraternity-member of the mind-blowingly huge and expensive, hierarchical Local Government, mega- franchise. (Something like McDonalds- without the cholesterol- but with lots of added bullsh..t?)

Now let’s move on to (ex) Senator Bronwyn Bishop.

It is well known in local government circles that a minority of CEO’s boast they run the show. They claim that a few Elected Council Members are so bereft of the statutory knowledge required to be councillors they are easily manipulated as being compliance and financial probity inept putty.
The DLGC has been advised of this by highly qualified academics since 2005, but loved its’ ‘see no evil; hear no evil, what compliance? policy’ the way it was. That is until York popped up and Tony Simpson belatedly did what he certainly should have done when Ray Hooper was in full flight.

Everyone knows that Hooper turned the Shire of York, in the Boyle and Pat Hooper era into ‘Hooper’s Tours’ travel agency where he very briefly attended numerous interstate conferences that should have been well above even his enormous pay-scale and had nothing to do with the day-to-day management of, and any benefit to, a small rural shire council’s community. However it was fun for his wife and lucrative for the Eastern States tourist industry.

It was also Local Government Council money-tree manipulation on a grand scale, with an estimated cost to the York community in excess of $100,000.

Along with every other piece of local government probity legislation, the DLGC does not consider itself responsible or accountable for allowing the highlife-style travel expenditure epitomized by Ray Hooper’s expensive meandering.

However there is not much difference between claiming all expenses for totally unnecessary, lightning quick, attendances at a local government conferences, prior to swanning around the tourist spots, than Bronwyn Bishop ripping all of us off by claiming everything for anything from her vastly expensive travel forays.

At least her efforts were paid for by every taxpayer in the country while Hooper’s was restricted to just the ratepayers of York. 

But both the Hooper/Bishop efforts failed the ultimate test- public opinion and the same probity compliance test on travel rorting should apply to Local Government as it, finally, appears to be with the Federal Government. 

As Tony Abbot now acknowledges “within entitlements (which is obviously not correct), but beyond “community expectations” (which is very much correct) is the litmus test for the misuse of taxpayer funds. 

But there one distinct difference, Bronwyn Bishop is paying money back, where Ray Hooper won’t be.