Conflict of interest apology at council meeting

Mayor Karen Williams made a long statement at the Council meeting on 23 October including an apology for her “error and oversight” in not declaring a conflict of interest at a previous meeting.

Much of the Mayor’s statement concerned the Council’s failure to ensure that its version of her register of interests, published on the Council’s website, was complete and correct.

The Mayor’s statement was followed by a statement from the Council’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr Andrew Chesterman.

These statements raise some interesting questions, like who is responsible for ensuring that councillors properly declare their interests, especially if these interests are political donations.

You can hear what was said on the Council’s meeting webcast video recording, but for clarity, we publish our verbatim transcripts of the statements by Mayor Williams and CEO Chesterman, at the end of this post.

Conflicts of interest and the law

Queensland’s Local Government Act imposes strict obligations on all local councillors to declare any conflict of interest in any matter being discussed at a formal council meeting.

The Council CEO is required to maintain a register of councillors’ interests and councillors are obliged to keep the CEO informed about any changes in their interests.

Councillors also have responsibilities under the Local Government Electoral Act to make public declarations about gifts received, within a few weeks of an election being held. These declarations are published by the Electoral Commission of Queensland on its website.

Here are all declarations by candidates for Redland City’s local council elections in 2016 and 2012.

Councillors who fail to properly declare their interests in accordance with applicable laws can be subject to a range of sanctions, including fines or even imprisonment.

Previous failure to declare a conflict of interest.

This is the second time in two years that Mayor Williams has failed to declare a conflict of interest at a council meeting.

Her failure to declare a conflict of interest at a meeting on 21 February 2018 was determined to be misconduct by the Remuneration and Discipline Tribunal. The Mayor was ordered by the Tribunal to make an admission of error at a council meeting, which she did on 24 October 2018.

Other conflict of interest declarations at the meeting

At every Redland City Council meeting there’s an agenda item (Item 11) for declaration of conflicts of interest. At the meeting on 23 October three councillors raised matters.

Cr Paul Gleeson raised an issue but other councillors decided that it did not constitute a conflict of interest.

Deputy Mayor Lance Hewlett raised two issues, proposing in each case to absent himself from the meeting because of a perceived conflict of interest:

• For item 19.2 he said that he had a conflict of interest because the Australian Industry Trade College had donated to a community breakfast organised by his wife.
• For item 19.3 he said that he had a perceived conflict of interest because the report mentioned J.J. Richards who was a donor to his election campaign. Cr Hewlett declared a donation of $1,000 from J.J. Richards in 2016.

Mayor Williams declared a perceived conflict of interest in item 19.3 saying that J.J. Richards was on her register of interests as a contributor to her 2012 election campaign. The Mayor’s statement was not quite correct. She has previously declared a donation of $10,000 from J,J. Richards & Sons (her largest single declared donation) but this was for her 2016 election campaign.

Conflict over removing an item from the agenda

There was also a declaration of a perceived conflict of interest by Mayor Williams during discussion about a motion to withdraw Item 19.1 so it could be brought back to the next meeting. This item concerns proposed major amendments to the City Plan which would give increased protection to environmental corridors across the city.

After concerns were raised by Cr Murray Elliott that the Mayor had a conflict on this matter she reluctantly left the room, after stating that she had a perceived conflict of interest because she lived in an area that could be impacted by the proposed changes to the city plan.

Cr Wendy Boglary commented that the Mayor’s conflict had been declared yesterday during a non-public discussion about the matter. She also expressed some concerns about information being removed from the report before it is resubmitted to a council meeting.

Cr Paul Gleeson immediately moved a “put motion” to terminate discussion on this item. It was approved 5/3. Councillors who supported the put motion were Peter Mitchell, Paul Golle, Tracey Huges, Paul Gleeson and Lance Hewlett. Councillors who opposed the put motion were Wendy Boglary, Murray Elliott and Paul Bishop. Mayor Williams was out of the room, Cr Mark Edwards was absent from the meeting and Cr Julie Talty only appeared in the chambers after the deferral of item 19.2 had been decided.

The discussion about removal of item 19.2 occured during Item 10 Motion to Alter the Order of Business. It can viewed on the Council Meeting webcast video commencing at 0:53:53.

Mayor Karen Williams’ conflict of interest apology

Statement by Mayor Karen Williams at Council General Meeting on 23 October transcribed from the meeting webcast (time starts is 1:02:23)

Just before we proceed from this item, Councillors, I just want to take a moment to put something on the public record.

At the 11^th of  September meeting, councillors voted on item 14.3 Material Change of Use application for health care services at 58 to 68 Delancey Street Ormiston which was a supporting an officers recommendation.

In preparation for that meeting I took the usual steps of preparing for all my as I do for all my general meetings.

I check the general meeting items against my register of interests Council um is required to make available on Council’s website.

In this instance the applicant for this item was not listed on that on-line register I checked before the general meeting and consequently I voted on the item.

It has since come to my attention that the register of interests that I referred to the one uploaded by Council officers to Council’s website was not a complete copy of my register due to it omitting all forms prior to May 2012.

This error meant that the applicant of MCU, Mr Stephen Lambourne who is also the operator of SS Signs, was not included on the register that I checked when I checked it, despite SS Signs have provided in kind support to me um in January 2012. So um seven eight years ago.

When I was made aware of [that] these forms were omitted from the on-line register of interests kept by Council, I wrote to the CEO and requested an explanation as to why it was not complete.

The CEO has looked at this matter and it appears the error may have been a case of an officer believing at some point in time that forms prior to me becoming mayor were no longer required to be included in the register.  This is not the case.

And the CEO has uploaded all missing forms to remedy this error.

To be clear I make [brief pause]  the responsible for ensuring I follow my obligations under the Act and I have always taken a better safe and sorry approach as I have today in declaring an interest and have left the room when required.

This includes in 2015 when I previously declared an interest in regards to this applicant using the same method I had on this occasion.

So I’d like to apologise for that error and oversight but while I have a responsibility I also believe our community has a right to know that the information on Council’s website is accurate and um in this time and age we do actually rely on on-line information more so than we used to when I first got elected in 2004.

So to ensure that all registers are accurate I’ve asked the CEO to review the process council officers use to upload those forms and to ensure the community can be confident that they are accurate and complete.

I also remind councillors to review the material uploaded to Council’s website to ensure it accurately represents their interests and actually meets the requirements of that section of the Act.

Thank you and I might just defer to the CEO who can provide a statement of what has actually occurred.

CEO Andrew Chesterman’s statement on 23 October

Statement by CEO Andrew Chesterman at Council General Meeting on 23 October transcribed from the meeting webcast (time starts is 1:05:09)

Thanks Madam Mayor I’ve recently reviewed the councillors’ register of interest process and it’s come to my attention for the last several years the Mayor’s register published on our webpage only contained information following her election as Mayor in April 2014 [she was actually elected on 28 April 2012].

Importantly the file copies, that’s the hard copies, do contain all information going back to Councillor Williams’ election as a councillor in 2004 and these have been available for inspection.

This appears to be the result of administrative practices as the mayor said put in place some years ago.

The published register on council’s website now contains all disclosure, some hundreds of pages, since Mayor Williams was first elected to Redland City Council as a councillor in 2004.

Councillors are required as you know to have current registers of interest available on the internet and the Mayor’s register available on-line I now believe goes beyond this requirement in accordance with the Act. I’ve also initiated via our governance team [word(s) indistinct] review of the process of recording registers of interest and administrative practices that surround the receipt and uploading of registers when they are updated.

Redlands2030 – 27 October 2019