Extract from Hansard [ASSEMBLY — Tuesday, 9 April 2019] p2258a-2325a Mr Terry Healy; Mr Peter Rundle; Mr Chris Tallentire; Mrs Lisa O'Malley; Ms Sabine Winton; Ms Lisa Baker; Mr Ian Blayney; Ms Janine Freeman; Mr David Michael; Mr David Templeman; Mr Tony Krsticevic; Mrs Alyssa Hayden; Mr Shane Love; Mr Bill Johnston LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2019 Second Reading Resumed from 4 April. MR T.J. HEALY (Southern River) [3.39 pm]: I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the Local Government Legislation Amendment Bill. I am a former Gosnells councillor. The entire electorate of Southern River is within the City of Gosnells. It is a fantastic community and a fantastic council. It employs hundreds of staff who deliver an incredible number of services and I am honoured to be able to stand and speak to that. Today, I am going to speak about the importance of the CEO review. The CEO is the most important staff member that the council employs. I am going to talk about gift and travel registers; universal training and how important that is in helping councillors across Western Australia to understand the importance of their role; the mandatory code of conduct; and meeting attendance. I would like to commend the Minister for Local Government for the work that is being done, the chair of the Local Government Act review—the member for Balcatta, I believe—and all local governments and stakeholders for being a part of the discussion and working towards reform in this area, something that has not been done for so long. I am so lucky that I get to represent the City of Gosnells as part of my electorate. It is a fantastic council. I believe in local government and the services it can deliver. I believe in the ways that we can inspire our community to know about and believe in their local government leadership, whether that is the CEO, directors, councillors, mayor or deputy mayor. We have a responsibility through this and all local government reform bills to ensure that we give the best support to our community. We can always do better in raising expectations and showing our community that local, state and federal governments are important institutions. This bill is about local government, but the majority of people in my community do not really know or care too much about the differences between their local representatives. They want to know whether those representatives are delivering what they said they would deliver and listening. It is important that all elected members in our communities know that. I believe in transparency and accountability. As a young, new councillor, I was able to meet with the then Mayor of the City of Vincent, now member for Perth, John Carey. As I said in my last contribution, I am definitely part of the John Carey school of transparency and accountability. I believe that when councils act transparently, hold themselves to be accountable, minimise interstate travel, put developer registers on, show the community where they are driving to and declare gifts, then we will help to restore faith and belief in all levels of government. I have also said in the past that at election time every two years our councils can only be as good as those who stand. We need to call upon members of the public in all our constituencies. We need nurses, parents, teachers, public servants, and working mums and dads to stand up so that our councillors can come from the best. There is an opportunity within council that can be more than just catching dogs and picking up bins. The number of services and the work that can be done is incredible. I would like to talk first of all about the elements of the bill that talk about CEO review. Members will be aware that a council is not a sitting parliament like the state or federal Parliament; it essentially operates as a board of governors. We have 600-plus members of staff at the City of Gosnells. The council does not employ them. The council employs one person and that is the chief executive officer. That CEO then employs directors and heads of department and organises the budgets, the administration and all the actual work that gets done. CEO review is important. We have a great CEO—Ian Cowie. He comes from a great background within local government. As a councillor and member of Parliament, I have only ever worked with one CEO, but others tell me that he is pretty good, as do the councillors and the community. I had been elected as a councillor for only one or two months when we were asked to do a CEO review. I do not think that I was ready, only two months in, learning all the things that I needed to know. We participated. An independent consultant came in and asked us a bunch of questions about whether we were happy with this or that. I participated and the CEO continued his contract. We tried to set some further key performance indicators, but generally everyone was happy. CEO reviews are one of our most important jobs as councillors, but I think that they should not happen one month out from a fresh election. I think that what is included here as part of the CEO review is very, very important. I was apparently the only councillor to ask for a copy of the contract. Again, it was not that I wanted to get rid of the CEO, but if I was being asked to renew this contract, I needed to see the terms. I found it disappointing that I was the only councillor who asked for that. The independent consultant at the review meeting said that the majority of councillors did not even fill in the elements of the feedback sheet. I am not saying that there was anything wrong with that review process. We had a great CEO; maybe the more experienced councillors were simply saying that they were happy and things should continue. On reflection, I wish I had more of a chance to be involved and to learn more about that. After a year as a councillor I was much better informed and perhaps I could have been better involved. Again, it is absolutely key that we have a functioning and well-working CEO, and that a council knows the terms of its contract when it may need to look at redirecting the council. [1] Extract from Hansard [ASSEMBLY — Tuesday, 9 April 2019] p2258a-2325a Mr Terry Healy; Mr Peter Rundle; Mr Chris Tallentire; Mrs Lisa O'Malley; Ms Sabine Winton; Ms Lisa Baker; Mr Ian Blayney; Ms Janine Freeman; Mr David Michael; Mr David Templeman; Mr Tony Krsticevic; Mrs Alyssa Hayden; Mr Shane Love; Mr Bill Johnston The City of Gosnells is very lucky to have an incredible team of directors. Many members would know—I think it was mentioned in the second reading debate last week—that in 2018, the councillors of the City of Gosnells voted unanimously in a vote of no confidence in the existing mayor. While those kind of frictions are going on, our CEO and directors keep working and delivering for our area. They keep working no matter what, and they run an amazing organisation. I have mentioned the CEO, Ian Cowie. I would also like to mention the director of planning and development, Chris Terelinck; the director of business services, Grant Bradbrook; our new director of community engagement, Glenda Blake; and our new director of infrastructure, Martin Glover. I want to also acknowledge former directors David Harris, Ron Bouwer, and the incredible Adelle Cochran, who ran such an incredible team of people to deliver services in my community. I would also like to mention the members for Thornlie, Forrestfield, Jandakot, Cannington and Kalamunda, with whom I share the City of Gosnells. Gift declaration is very important. I commend the minister for the inclusion that any gift over $300 will need to be reported online within 10 days. It is important for us as members of Parliament to declare gifts, but councillors operate in a different framework. There are different levels of scrutiny. There is not a state media; there is local media, and often interested members of the public hold councils accountable. There are vested interests in our areas that people need to be informed about. Again, I am not saying that anything is inappropriate, but when a light is shone on declarations of gifts, the community can know and continue to know that we stand clean and transparent; that we are trying to say, “Look, we do not think anything is inappropriate; here are the gifts that I have declared”, whether I have been to this function or that function, so that the community knows. If there is then a conflict of interest, I can exclude myself. I was very proud to pass the first online gift register in the City of Gosnells. The Comment News article of 16 February 2016 entitled “Healy’s proposal for online gift register popular with big gallery” states — Councillor Terry Healy proposed that the City’s chief executive make Gosnells’ elected member and employee gift register publicly accessible in electronic form on the website. … The almost full gallery exploded into applause following Mr Healy’s statement and when the councillors voted for the motion to pass.” It certainly got a positive response. It is very important to realise that not all councillors understand what a gift is and why a gift declaration is important. One of the first events I went to with my wife was an invitation from the owners to a corporate box at the local baseball park.