No hope if even the councillors are kept in the dark

THE lack of transparency from the Bass Coast Shire Council goes deep.

We saw evidence of it again at last Wednesday’s council meeting when it was revealed that emails addressed to the ‘Mayor and Councillors’ about the whereabouts of the missing mayoral chains were not passed on to councillors.

And despite knowing as far back as 2017 that the ceremonial regalia of the Mayor of the Borough of Wonthaggi had gone missing, likely stolen, there was no official confirmation of it until last week, and only then at the prompting of former mayor and long-serving councillor John Duscher.

So tightly-wound about, what, the reputation of the council (?) is Bass Coast that the former mayor, a Medal of the Order of Australia recipient no less, wasn’t allowed to address council with his concerns about an item of such important cultural heritage, despite their being a section of the governance rules which specifically allows it.

But, as regrettable as it is that the community is kept in the dark about just about everything relating to Bass Coast, it’s even worse that our elected representatives are kept out of the loop as well.

They couldn’t tell you, for example, about the operational performance of the new Cowes Cultural Centre, almost four months since it got up and running, despite its likely impact on an already tight budget.

But you’d have to blame the councillors themselves, in large part, for not getting together and insisting they have the information they need, in the form they need it to perform their role.

It was one of the key aims of the new Local Government Act of 2020 that Council information must be clear, capable of being understood, and accessible to all.

Bass Coast isn’t on its own. Lack of transparency and accountability is a disease that’s endemic in the public service (an oxymoron if there ever was one) and while you’d like to think it might make a difference, to change the deckchairs at the next council election in October 2024, it probably won’t.

All that we can hope to see from the new CEO at Bass Coast, Greg Box, and the councillors in the final days of the present regime are some signs of hope.