Another Bass Coast fiasco looms

JUST when you thought (hoped) the Bass Coast Shire Council might pull its head in, after the debacle of Wonthaggi’s housing fiasco, and stay in its lane until the October elections, they’ve embarked on yet another train wreck.
We knew when the council voted to set up an independent, not-for-profit company called the ‘Environment Fund’ at its June council meeting that council’s involvement in the initiative stunk to high heaven.
But now we are starting to hear what, frankly we suspected all along, that this ratbag fringe ‘Climate Emergency’ proposal is going to cost ratepayers an absolute bomb with no guarantee that it will deliver any benefits inside the boundaries of the Bass Coast Shire.

Is that even legal?

It took a series of questions from the community at the July meeting of council to start to unravel the deliberately secretive process that has led to the establishment of the Environment Fund and the allocation of $50,000 of ratepayers’ money from the shire’s 2023-24 budget.

That’s not from the new 2024-25 budget, which was only adopted at the same meeting, on June 19, 2024.

In fact, it took the council a full 12 months to even see a motion approving the establishment of the Environment Fund after oblique reference to the ‘design and implementation’ of an environment fund was included in the 2023-24 budget papers.

So, while many worthy community projects have to jump through exhaustive hoops before being even considered for funding, here was a loopy thought bubble of an idea hidden away in the 2023-24 budget, well before the council received a glossy, audio-visual presentation recently about the fund and voted to approve it, 12 months later.

That money was effectively allocated even before the council knew what it was really for, and before they’d voted to agree to the fund’s establishment.

How does that even happen?

There still hasn’t been a council motion that specifically makes an allocation of $50,000 of ratepayers’ money to the environment fund.

Here’s what the 2023-24 budget says about the establishment of the fund: “Strategic Objective 1: Protecting our natural environment 1. Design and implement a dedicated perpetual environment fund for accelerating habitat restoration on public and private land.”

Nowhere does it say, and nowhere is it explained that this is not a council-controlled fund, that it is in fact to be controlled by a private company, completely separate from council, and that council may not have a seat on the board or even be able to influence where future funds are to be used.

In fact, it’s implied in the 2023-24 budget reference that it is to be a council-controlled fund.

As well as the $50,000 to design and implement the fund, the way has also been left open for council to contribute untold thousands of dollars more to its work.

The environment fund is the brainchild of former Bass Coast Mayor Cr Michael Whelan who, it has been mooted, will seek a seat on the board of this new entity, if not emerge as its inaugural chairman after he retires as a councillor at the next election.

What Cr Whelan does after he leaves council is his business, but having steered this initiative through council, including the allocation of ratepayers’ money, what he needs to do before he leaves council is rule out any ambition to be directly involved in an organisation he played a key role in establishing for a reasonable amount of time, at least 18 months, or for a time acceptable to the community.

There is nothing wrong with the Bass Coast Shire Council encouraging the establishment of an independent environment fund that will “reverse biodiversity decline by preserving and enhancing existing habitat and accelerating the restoration of connected habitat across the landscape” but council’s sole responsibility is to the people of the Bass Coast Shire.

Ratepayers’ funds are to be spent here, doing what the council’s vision says we should be doing, concentrating on initiatives that “would improve living, visiting and investing in the municipality”.