Toodyay Herald

A report on a WA Government inquiry into Toodyay Shire Council and its administration listed 25 adverse findings against former shire CEO Stan Scott and the previous council.

It said the former council failed to properly manage the former CEO’s behaviour and actions over the seven-year period investigated.

Those held responsible include two current serving councillors whose four-year terms expire in October.

They are former Toodyay shire president Brian Rayner (right) and former shire deputy president Therese Chitty (far right).

Adverse findings against the former council and the former CEO were tabled in State Parliament last October.

Mr Hammond’s independent review is scheduled to be finalised on September 30.

A final report and recommendations are due to be submitted to the State Government according to a timetable agreed by the WA Local Government Department.

Director General Duncan Ord last month granted a request by the debt-laden current council that the State – not Toodyay ratepayers – cover the review cost.

Management consultant Hammond Woodhouse Advisory was selected behind closed doors at last month’s council meeting.

The contract price was kept confidential.

The shire had earlier estimated the cost at between $20,000-$50,000, which would have wiped out most or all of this year’s $40,000 shire budget surplus.

In a letter dated April 13 tabled at last month’s council meeting, Mr Ord wrote to Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst noting the “positive and proactive manner that the shire has responded to the recommendations of the authorised inquiry report”.

He asked the shire to “complete the current request for a quotation” and said his department would pay for the review “in accordance with the Shire of Toodyay Scope for Work of Governance Review previously provided by the department”.

Mr Ord said his department would also need to agree to who conducted the review.

Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst said the department had provided a template for the governance review terms of reference to use as the basis for its scope.

It was emailed to councillors for feedback before quotes were sought.

Former Toodyay Progress Association chair Larry Graham (pictured left telling a 2019 WA Parliamentary Select Committee hearing that five local councils, including the Shire of Toodyay, should be axed and merged into a single new Avon Regional Authority) told last month’s council meeting that the invitation to seek quotes “should not have been made”.

He said the review terms of reference had not been authorised by the Director General of the Local Government Department, as recommended in the inquiry report.

It was not enough that it be approved by the department, he said.

“The administration of neither the shire nor the department know what the council or the Director General may or may not approve,” Mr Graham said.

“It’s not dancing on the head of a pin.

“You are not allowed to be ambushed and you have been.”

Budget hamstrung

It jeopardises the shire’s 2018 long-term financial plan which requires 10 years of annual rate increases of 2.5 per cent.

The recreation centre debt also hamstrings this year’s shire budget after the council froze Toodyay’s 2020-21 rates in response to WA Premier Mark McGowan’s call on local government to ease financial stress on the community due to Covid-19 job losses.

Cr Susan Pearce told last month’s council meeting that she was concerned that shire debt might affect long-term financial support for the annual Toodyay Agricultural Show.

The lack of a fresh business case for the council’s hastily revised $12.1 million plan (now $15 million) in December 2017 was revealed in answer to a public question by former Toodyay Progress Association chair Larry Graham at last month’s council meeting.

Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst said a business case for an “original concept’ was presented to the former council in November 2017 but there were “some amendments to those concepts”.

$9m pipe dream

Shire records show the former CEO originally recommended that the council approve a whopping $8 million loan on top of the $1 million it had already borrowed.

The plan included a new oval for football and cricket which he said would “cater for events such as the Toodyay Agricultural Show plus festivals, trade shows and community celebrations”, a rectangular playing field for hockey, soccer and rugby, netball basketball and tennis courts, and a new function centre for corporate events.

The $23.1 million scheme was approved 6-2, including former acting president Therese Chitty and recently retired Cr Paula Greenway in favour, and Cr Ben Bell and former councillor Sally Craddock against.

Former shire president Brian Rayner was absent on council-approved leave.

The December 2017 Herald reported that an $8 million loan would cost $10 million in interest, quadruple shire debt, cost ratepayers $900,000 a year for the next 20 years and require annual rate rises of 17 per cent.

Showground denial

The former CEO later denied that the shire planned to sell the historic showground to pay off the huge debt, though his business case said the first stage would “cater for events such as the Toodyay Agricultural Show”.

The massive costings blunder forced former shire president Rayner to call a special council meeting two weeks later to rescind the flawed November 28 decision.

The special meeting was presented with a new plan that had to be rushed through the council to meet a December 19 Federal funding deadline.

The former CEO used the same business case and cost-benefit analysis from the previous flawed decision to justify his new plan at the December 12 council meeting.

It was carried 6-3, including former president Rayner, former deputy president Chitty and former Cr Greenway in favour, and Cr Bell and former councillors Craddock and Di Granger against.

No record

No public record of that meeting was posted on the shire website.

The omission was questioned by The Herald at the start of this month.

Ms Haslehurst said she would check the shire’s 2017 online public records.

Shire President Rosemary Madacsi – who was re-elected to the council last October after a four-year absence – said in answer to public questions last month that what occurred in 2017 was “well before our time”.

“To be quite frank, it is done and dusted – that business was already in place,” she said.

“We are dealing with the impact now and moving forward now.”

The council is now considering how to manage next year’s budget with a wafer-thin surplus of only $40,000 due at the end of this financial year and the first full year of increased monthly debt repayments starting on July 1.

Cr Greenway served more than eight years on the council after being elected with 68 votes in the shire’s now-abolished West Ward in 2013 and won re-election in 2017 with 214 votes in an ‘in-person’ ballot restricted only to former West Ward electors.

Shire CEO Suzie Haslehurst will prepare a report to the council about options for the already cash-strapped shire to avoid the additional $23,000 cost of a postal ballot of all Toodyay voters in a one-seat by-election.

This would leave Cr Greenway’s seat vacant until October’s state-wide local government elections when the four-year terms of four Toodyay councillors expire.

Cr Greenway’s resignation takes effect from April 30, and her last council meeting will be on Tuesday April 27.

Her departure will leave the Shire of Toodyay with an eight-member council, with President Rosemary Madacsi holding a second ‘casting’ vote to break any deadlocked decisions.

The last time this occurred was two years ago, also on April 1, when former Cr Craig Brook resigned after a council meeting for which he flew back from his new job in Melbourne.

At that meeting, former Cr Brook seconded a motion that was passed 5-4 not to re-employ former shire CEO Stan Scott when his contract expired in July 2019.

Cr Greenway was one of Mr Scott’s most ardent supporters in council and reportedly angrily berated Cr Brook as he left the chamber after his final meeting.

The shire’s Code of Conduct requires elected members to “treat others with respect and fairness” and not “make any allegations that are derogatory or improper”.

“We will always act in the best interests of the Shire and refrain from any type of communication, in our public or professional duties, which may cause any reasonable person unwarranted offence or embarrassment.”

Cr Greenway later told The Herald she could not recall the incident.

She then took part in a surprise council backflip a month after Cr Brook’s departure to re-employ Mr Scott in a secret 6-2 vote behind closed doors.

This was despite a State Government inquiry that later made 14 adverse findings against Mr Scott for financial mismanagement, conflict of interest, unethical conduct and other failures under local government law, many of which were reported in The Toodyay Herald but largely ignored by the former council.

Cr Greenway voted unsuccessfully against employing Ms Haslehurst as Mr Scott’s replacement in May last year.

She also lost her second bid in two years to be elected shire deputy president after unsuccessfully opposing the election of Cr Rosemary Madacsi as shire president.

Managing Director Alex Dorsch told the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) last month that her appointment would help “advance our major project towards development as a long-term supplier of many of the critical metals required to decarbonise the global economy and reduce pollution”.

Shares in the cashed-up Perth explorer rose sharply to 5.46c on April 1 after the company informed the Australian Stock Exchange a week earlier of “highly encouraging” new results.

These include tests for palladium, which fetches more than $2500 an ounce (28.3g) on world markets, as well as nickel, copper, cobalt and other platinum group elements.
Palladium is highly sought after on world markets for use in catalytic converters to reduce vehicle pollution in petrol engines.

The platinum group elements are regarded by major car manufacturers and ‘clean energy’ industries as “critical metals for electric vehicles and other energy storage applications”.

The latest Toodyay test results follow ground-based electro-magnetic surveys in the southern Julimar Forest.

They add to drilling results on 945ha of private land – which Chalice calls ‘Gonneville’ in nearby Keating Road – which the company bought last year for a total of $14 million in cash and shares.

Chalice says it has yet to apply for State Government permission to drill in the environmentally sensitive State Forest to confirm the full extent and potential cash value of its Julimar discovery.

In its March 25 ASX statement, Chalice described the Hartog results as similar to last year’s ground-based electro-magnetic findings in Gonneville, south of Julimar Road.

“The results are considered to be highly encouraging,” Mr Dorsch said.

They were “mostly aligned along the strike from Gonneville. making these high priority drill targets”.

For Aboriginal peoples – including in Toodyay – Australia’s colonial history was characterised by devastating land dispossession, violence, and racism.

Over the last half-century, however, many significant steps towards reconciliation have been taken, including locally.

Developing a shire reconciliation action plan is part of that ongoing journey.

Corporation chairperson Robert Miles said he was very encouraged by recent talks with the shire about developing a practical action plan built on relationships, respect and opportunities.

In other news, the corporation is working closely with the shire to install a plaque to commemorate a State-registered Aboriginal burial site behind the historic Toodyay Showgrounds grandstand.

It was used as a hockey pitch from 1979 until 2013, when the shire was informed by the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council that the site had been gazetted since 1916 as an Aboriginal Cemetery.

An older plaque hidden in nearby trees is not visible from the burial site, which was cordoned off by a line of large rocks in 2013 when hockey playing stopped.

We are progressing well with this project, which will in future include other nearby cultural facilities, and hope the new plaque will be installed in time to be celebrated, along with the shire’s new reconciliation action plan, during National Reconciliation Week which runs from May 27 to June 3.

Medical authorities say ‘herd immunity’ to end the pandemic can be achieved in Australia if more than 80 per cent of the population is vaccinated.

Toodyay is due to receive 50 doses of the vaccine every week, with plans to increase this number over time to immunise the more than 1200 eligible people – about a third of the shire’s population – during the first phase of the mass roll-out.

They include people aged over 70, emergency service volunteers, those with chronic disease and Aboriginal people older than 55.

Some GP clinics in other parts of the state have chosen not to administer the vaccine, resulting in increased demand in other GP medical centres.

The Wheatbelt Health Network says it will call all eligible Toodyay patients to offer them local Covid-19 shots as fresh doses arrive from Perth.

Bookings will be made in groups of 10 because each vial of the AstraZenica vaccine contains 10 doses.

The Toodyay clinic says it is balancing standard medical appointments with Covid-19 vaccinations to enable a doctor to be present when shots are administered.
The AstraZenica vaccine requires two doses to be given 12 weeks apart.

The local vaccination roll-out coincides with the start of WA’s annual flu season, for which separate shots are due to become available in Toodyay at the end of this month.

Covid-19 and flu vaccines need to be administered at least two weeks apart.
The Wheatbelt Health Network said people who didn’t want to wait for a local booking could contact Perth respiratory clinics that are providing dedicated immunisation programs.