Dear Kangaroo Island Electors, you may have read or heard about the strange article ‘Council calls in troops’ on the front page of The Islander (20/10/2011), following on another strange article brashly titled “Council at war“.
Three councillors, Ken Liu, Graham Walkom and Rosalie Chirgwin were viciously attacked and they were not approached by the journalist for an alternative view on the disputed matters.
You may thus be interested in reading their full media statement below.

They also jointly submitted a short response to The Islander, in the form of a letter to the Editor, who censored and expurgated it. You may read the unexpurgated, original version of their letter to the Editor by clicking here.

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Councillors Chirgwin, Liu and Walkom unequivocally reject Cr Clements’ personal attack and the apparently orchestrated mischief published in The Islander (20/10/2011) following the CEO’s response to Cr Liu’s request for up-to-date legal costs.

Prior to the first meeting of the new council last year, councillors were, at informal meetings, pressed by the mayor to pursue the SA Parliament Member for Finniss, for alleged bullying. We strongly resisted this coercion to participate in such an inappropriate quest, but nevertheless still found ourselves embroiled in a costly and futile external investigation. The consequent legal and associated costs have compounded to the present headline numbers in the front page lead story in The Islander of the 20th of October, 2011. (See footnote 1)

It is implied that these legal costs are due to improper questions and statements by ourselves, but in fact we have not supported spending this money on engaging lawyers. We have repeatedly opposed obtaining such unneeded advice, the seemingly endless litany of frivolous and vexatious complaints against us, and the significant waste of resources over these futile cases. None of us have received paid legal assistance during all this! (See footnote 2)

What we have done is ask simple questions about this and other matters and have often been given unsatisfactory or evasive answers. We have therefore asked further questions only to be given more unsatisfactory answers. Enough!

On the 11^th April of 2011 we lodged a complaint to the Ombudsman about the mayor’s role in keeping information from council. Whilst the details of the Ombudsman’s findings have, in our view, been inappropriately made confidential by council, he has, outside the provisions of confidentiality, advised each of us that, “in failing to provide elected members with the incident reports, the council has acted in a way that is contrary to law…”.

We have recently advised the CEO that we intend to pursue our right to be properly informed on this and all matters including proper access to all relevant information associated with this unfortunate process over the last year. We have also advised that obtaining these totally unnecessary legal opinions on this issue and the persecution of us with spurious investigations is a serious waste of ratepayers’ money, and we will continue to oppose this nonsense at every opportunity.

We intend to pursue our lawful obligation to ratepayers to be properly informed on all council matters. (See footnote 3)

Ratepayers can be assured that we will act in their best interests by questioning the current proliferate spending habits of this council, and all indicative irregularities as they become known to us. We will continue to focus on the Island’s essential needs such as better, safer roads and on reducing our ridiculously high budget deficit. (See footnote 4)

It is our view that if this council is to avoid amalgamation, or be otherwise run from the mainland, the current ‘shoot the messenger’ culture of secrecy must change.

Councillors Graham Walkom, Ken Liu and Rosalie Chirgwin, 26th of October 2011

Footnote 1: According to the ‘legal fees summary’ tabled at the October 2011 meeting:

• $14,237 spent on ‘Bullying & Harassment’ issues;
• $4,254 on lawyers to defend Ombudsman complaint against the Mayor;
• $2,449 on legal advice to deal with Cr Walkom’s personal statement;
• $26,689 on Code of Conduct & Incident Reports of which $2,235 on Cr Rosalie and $1,722 on Cr Liu & Walkom for code of conduct investigations; and
• $20,129 on other legal advice which should be provided by Council’s administration or LGA.

Total of these unnecessary legal costs incurred to date: $67,758.

Footnote 2: We believe that frivolous and vexatious complaints are a serious waste of council’s resources, but note that one councillor alone has lodged 15 code of conduct breaches and none have yet been resolved.

Footnote 3: The right of a councillor to have access to relevant council documents is both essential (to be properly informed) and obviously a legal entitlement under the Local Government Act. There is no provision for the CEO, the mayor or council itself to deny this to a councillor.

Sec 61 [Local Government Act] – Access to information by members of councils

1)      A member of a council is entitled at any reasonable time, in connection with the performance or discharge of the functions or duties of the member (whether under this or another Act), without charge, to have access to any relevant council document, including (but not limited to)-

a)      A copy of a written contract entered into by the council, or a copy of a document relating to a contract that is proposed to be entered into by the council;

b)      Accounting records kept by the council;

c)       Financial statements and other documents prepared by the council under Chapter 8

Footnote 4: The following operational deficits indicate the seriousness of this council’s position – a position which the mayor and the majority of councillors refuse to address. This situation is despite rates continuing to rise each year in real terms.

Audited 2009/2010:  $2.1M deficit,

Unaudited 2010/2011:  $4.1M deficit,

Budgeted 2011/2012:  $4.8M deficit — 44% more than council’s income!