Port Macquarie-Hastings Council Dismissal

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [5.05 p.m.]: Members will be aware that on Tuesday this week, 26 February, I presented a petition to this House from more than 1,000 concerned citizens from the Hastings shire asking the Government not to dismiss Port Macquarie-Hastings Council. Yesterday, Wednesday 27 February, the Minister for Local Government dismissed the council on the recommendation of a commissioner who conducted a public inquiry into the council's affairs under section 740 of the Local Government Act. The report recommended dismissal on the grounds of the financial management of the Port Macquarie Arts, Culture and Entertainment Centre, a project known as the Glasshouse, which is now under construction and which will be opened later this year.

An earlier departmental inquiry under section 430 of the Act had found that there was no evidence of impropriety or corruption in the council's dealings. It is worth noting that the public inquiry received more than 800 submissions—the most ever for a public inquiry of this kind—and that three-quarters of them supported the council and the Glasshouse project. There are some very worrisome aspects to the inquiry and the report. For instance, the commissioner made several pre-emptive statements before and during the inquiry that convinced many people in Port Macquarie that he had made up his mind in advance. He suggested that the council should have conducted a plebiscite before starting the centre, and he advised the media not to miss the final week of the inquiry because, he said, it would be "sensational". His report has raised questions in Port Macquarie and, I believe, should have sounded alarm signals in the Minister's mind.

It is impossible not to feel that the report does not give fair play to the council, or to the many people who gave evidence in support of the council and the Glasshouse project. It tends to dismiss the evidence of people such as the mayor, the general manager, various councillors, senior council staff, and several prominent citizens as being insignificant, misleading or misinformed. It deals more sympathetically with evidence by opponents of the Glasshouse, whose determined and grim campaign, accompanied by a fog of misinformation and half-truths, led to the inquiry. The motives of these people are unclear, but they have been dogged in their attack on the council and the Glasshouse project.

For instance, one of the main groups opposing the Glasshouse was still maintaining on ABC radio that the project will cost more than $60 million, whereas evidence during the inquiry clearly set the overall cost, including property resumptions and the preservation of historic convict ruins, at $48 million—a figure well within the reach of this wealthy and well-run council. When announcing the dismissal the Minister made the comment, "They're not broke—but they were heading that way." He apparently does not know, as was established in evidence, that the council has a debt ratio of between 6 per cent and 7 per cent, one of the lowest in the State. To put this into perspective, Coffs Harbour, which is a similar sized regional centre, has a debt ratio of 22 per cent.

This dismissal is a disaster—a disaster for the people of Port Macquarie and for a bunch of honest, hardworking councillors in a council which, for instance, had the foresight to build a dam which has drought-proofed the shire for 10 years, a major recycling plant, and a world-noted garbage recycling facility, and which was coping well with the second-highest growth rate in the State and had won numerous awards and accolades for its work.

Ominously, this dismissal denies the people of the Hastings the ability to elect a council until September 2012. They should have been able to exercise their franchise in the local government elections in September this year. That opportunity has been denied to them. Local government democracy in the Hastings was assassinated yesterday after a flawed trial and a wrong verdict.