Geoff Helisma

When Yamba resident Lynne Cairns made a deputation about her and others being banned under Clarence Valley Council’s (CVC) Unreasonable Complainant Conduct (UCC) policy, at last month’s CVC meeting, councillors had also received a letter from the NSW Ombudsman’s office on the eve of the meeting.

The letter addressed acting general manager Laura Black’s complaint to the ombudsman’s office, regarding its handling of Ms Cairns’ complaint to the ombudsman.

In her deputation, Ms Cairns appealed to councillors, “The real issue here, however, is that Council administration consistently denied us the lawful information and documents that should have been available to us and then created a record that painted us as unreasonable complainants.”

However, the NSW Ombudsman office’s manager of inquiries and resolution, Veronica Brogden, advised in her letter, “Departure from policy … is not evidence that council’s actions were wrong or unreasonable … [and] that policy merely provides guidance to the user as to how they may exercise their discretion … policies are not laws, and no policy is capable of covering all circumstances that might arise.”

At the meeting, Cr Peter Johnstone said he’d “like to move a motion to move into confidential session”, however, mayor Ian Tiley, said, “I’m cognisant of your desire to go into confidential … [however] let’s commence discussion by the mover … and see where that takes us.”

Cr Bill Day: “There is no doubt that council did not follow the procedure outlined in the UCC policy, when restrictions on council services were applied to the four citizens in my NOM – three of these citizens, their concerns and complaints to council were triggered by council denying them information that council had no lawful right to deny them.

“This was confirmed by the IPC [Information and Privacy Commission] on three separate occasions.

“Councillors make all policies, and councillors do not make policies expecting their procedures to be ignored or disregarded.

“In the case of these four citizens, they were obviously no threat to the health and safety of council staff or other parties, yet not one of them was provided with a written letter before restrictions were imposed as was required by the UCC [policy].

“Councillors at the time were not notified or consulted.

“The UCC procedure was just ignored.

“The advice from the ombudsman received yesterday, advises that there has been a clear departure from UCC procedure, however, the ombudsman advises that is not evidence that it was wrong or unlawful.

“…I accept this, however … it’s clear that it is up to councillors to look at what has happened and decide if what has been done to the people is fair and reasonable.

“I clearly believe that it is not fair and reasonable.

“This issue has been festering for far too long; a couple of years in the case of John Hagger.

“…I suggest we simply apologise to these people, and we move on.”

Cr Greg Clancy, who seconded the motion, said, “Council does have a right to vary policy, but no individual councillor or staff member has that right.

“Council as a whole can do that with a majority vote, so the fact that the procedures were not followed correctly, even though it’s not law, still means that there was an error.

“I agree with Cr Day that we just need to give the apology, move on.”

No one spoke in opposition, however, six councillors (Toms, Novak, Smith, Whaites, Johnstone and Pickering) opposed apologising to the four citizens.