Council
7 June, 2024
Few admit to corruption in their council
Corruption in local government is real, a Horsham forum has heard, but not as prevalent as many believe.
The worst cases had included "grooming" of council officers, councillors and staff and devious well-constructed plans to achieve desired corrupt outcomes.
But while 73 per cent of councillors and 62 per cent of local government staff interviewed believed there was corruption in local government, only a small percentage admitted it was happening on their patch.
About 60 attended an anti-corruption forum in Horsham Town Hall led by Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) deputy commissioner David Wolf and Local Government Inspectorate chief municipal inspector Michael Stefanovic.
Participants said they saw conflicts of interest, "procurement", fraud and nepotism as the most common potential corruption issues.
Horsham Rural City Council was well represented at the forum with CEO Sunil Bhalla presenting a keynote speech. Mayor Robyn Gulline and councillors David Bowe, Penny Flynn, Claudia Haenel and Ian Ross attended. Crs Les Powell and Bob Reddan were absent.
Yarriambiack Shire Council was represented by Mayor Kylie Zanker and several staff members.
IBAC is Victoria's anti-corruption and police-oversight organisation aimed at preventing and exposing public sector corruption and police misconduct while the Local Government Inspectorate enforces the Local Government Act which covers council operations, public interest disclosures and councillor conduct.
Mr Wolf and Mr Stefanovic outlined corrupt conduct as: performing public functions dishonestly, knowingly breaching public trust, misuse of information or material acquired at work and conspiracy to attempt any of these.
In Local Government this could include misuse of a position, conflicts of interest, failure to take appropriate action, misuse of public resources, staffing practices, bullying and harassment, failure to adhere to licensing and regulations and procurement.
The meeting heard that it was important to "know what corrupt conduct looks like", how to report it and have the structures in place to follow through with this.
Speakers outlined issues behind Operation Sandon which led to convictions in the City of Casey in Melbourne's outer south east after exposure of failure to declare and manage conflicts of interest, failure to address poor councillor conduct and poor reporting mechanisms.
It also exposed councillors who claimed ignorance of conflict of interest obligations and who had attempted to influence other councillors, a general "culture of avoidance", abuse of meeting procedure, ineffective measures to deal with poor councillor conduct, limits on the CEO's authority and poor understanding of regulations.
Horsham's was the second Victorian forum, with the first at Warragul in Gippsland.