Graeme Simpson invokes legal doctrine of Reasonable Person to rule out possibility of Shire chicanery

‘No attempt to falsify public records,’ he says

In Notes from Underground 6, I cited evidence that in December 2012 the York Shire Council had falsified the minutes of the November 2012 Council meeting. 

It had done so by substituting ‘Balladong Farm’ for ‘vexatious residents’ as the main topic of a meeting with Ms Elisabeth Stevenson of the Shire’s lawyers, McLeods. CEO Hooper, DCEO Cochrane, and Crs Tony Boyle and Roy Scott  (listed here in order of importance) attended the meeting. 

According to credit card records, the meeting with Ms Stevenson was followed by a ratepayer-funded luncheon (including alcoholic beverages) at the 7^th Avenue Bar and Restaurant in Midland, and a little later by icecreams for the CEO and DCEO in Mundaring.  The full cost of those refreshments was allocated ingeniously to ‘Training and Conference’ expenses.

DCEO Cochrane later tried to persuade Ms Stevenson that the meeting had been not about ‘vexatious residents’ but about ‘Balladong Farm’. This would have brought Ms Stevenson’s recollection into line with the falsified minutes.  Ms Stevenson politely declined to cooperate in this Orwellian revising of the past.

Acting CEO Graeme Simpson has since described DCEO Cochrane as ‘an exemplary employee.’  

‘A well settled Rule of Law’

In November 2012, CEO Hooper, accompanied by Crs Boyle and Scott, repeated the pattern by meeting with David Morris of the DLGC in Perth to discuss ‘a vexatious ratepayer,’ then swanning off to Midland for another ratepayer-funded nosh-up and gargle in the same dining establishment as before.

This time, even more ingeniously, luncheon expenses were allocated to a conference in Perth that had concluded eleven days before the meeting with Mr. Morris took place.

Questioned about this odd fact by one of the usual ‘passionate extremist’ suspects, Acting CEO Simpson described it as ‘a not uncommon error’ arising from having to deal with ‘repetitive data entries.’

Then, donning wig and gown, sticking his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and puffing out his cheeks, Acting CEO Simpson delivered the following sonorous judgement:

The Reasonable Person principle is a well settled Rule of Law that is clear and does not need to be proved. In my opinion there has not been any attempt by Mr Ray Hooper or others to falsify public records or change the allocation costs in the Shire record. The costs have been allocated to the correct account but the function identified incorrectly.

I’m not quite sure what the Reasonable Person is doing here.  I think Mr. Simpson is arguing that since no reasonable person would interpret the facts of the case as an indication that public records had been falsified, he doesn’t have to justify his opinion: res ipsa loquitur, as the lawyers say.   

Honestly, I think he’s talking through his hat.

Mr. Simpson seems to have thrown in the Reasonable Person (aka ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’, in Australia ‘the man on the Bondi tram’) ostensibly to demonstrate his profound knowledge of law but actually to bamboozle the enquirer.  Using a bit of fake legal erudition or unusual words like ‘acolyte’ was a favourite technique of former CEO Hooper’s for keeping councillors as well as ratepayers firmly at heel.

Anyway, back to the November 2012 minutes.  Faced with the evidence, you’d have to be pretty dense or pretty desperate to deny that they were falsified at the Council meeting in December 2012.

There is no reason for Mr. Simpson to be desperate.  He was not a party to the crime.  But this is what he wrote to a friend of mine last week, after my Notes had laid bare the facts for the whole world to see:

I have checked on the Minutes of the Council meeting of 19 May 2014 and I am of the view that no reasonable thinking person could come to a conclusion that anybody has attempted to falsify a public record.

Is he trying to convince us he’s an idiot? Or is he just a true-blue Aussie team player doing the right thing by his mates? 

The verdict is yours.

By James Plumridge, our Crime and Corruption Correspondent, reporting from New Baghdad