Colin James: Sorry seems to be the hardest word
WHY is it that bungling politicans and bureaucrats can’t just put their hands on their hearts, admit they stuffed up and say sorry, asks Colin James.
SO it turns out, after a week of unwarranted indignation from Onkaparinga Council, that it spent not $6800 but $30,000 on chief executive Mark Dowd’s membership of an exclusive golf club. Every South Australian, not just ratepayers in Adelaide’s southern suburbs, should be shaking their heads in collective disgust.
Throw in the pitiful attempts by its mayor, Lorraine Rosenberg, to defend the decision on her Facebook account, one councillor attacking The Advertiser’s coverage of the sorry affair as a “witchhunt” and the ostracisation of another councillor who exposed it, and there is almost enough ammunition to justify a call for the abolition of local government.
Onkaparinga Council could have avoided all of this unwanted scrutiny if it had just – when the story first broke last week – ignored the legal advice it had received and admitted, with hand on heart, that it had stuffed up.
It wouldn’t have taken a brain surgeon to work out that all it would have taken for the issue to slide away was a public apology, a request for the golf-loving Mr Dowd to refund the $6800 and the release of a report the council had buried.
Instead, the council opted for the age-old bureaucratic practice of obfuscation, denial, avoidance, retaliation and delay. What complete dills they have proven to be. Their handling of the issue is a case study in crisis mismanagement.
With revelations the council spent $23,000 on lawyers when the Ombudsman started asking questions about Mr Dowd’s membership of Kooyonga Golf Club, the issue has been given new life, fresh legs. In newspaper speak, it is the story that keeps on giving.
Disappointingly, it is not the only example in recent days of how, when public disquiet or anger could have been quelled with a simple apology, our bureaucrats and politicians have opted for the exact opposite.
The most disturbing example has been the official reaction of Police Commissioner Grant Stevens to a coronial inquest which found his officers failed on multiple occasions to locate an armed drug dealer, who subsequently shot dead a young man walking through a suburban street.
Instead of publicly apologising to the family of Lewis McPherson, Mr Stevens said an internal inquiry would be conducted into why the drug-addled, incoherent and socially reprehensible Liam Humbles was not arrested when nine separate opportunities had presented themselves to detectives and uniformed officers.
There actually is no need for an internal inquiry. Deputy Coroner Anthony Schapel detailed exactly what went wrong in his 98-page report. Rather than buying time, Mr Stevens would be easing public concern by detailing exactly what he is going to do with Mr Schapel’s detailed and constructive recommendations.
Then there has been Health Minister Jack Snelling who, rather than providing every ounce of support to the victims of the chemotherapy bungle which has claimed four innocent lives, has seemed to be trying to thwart them in their efforts to establish the truth.
It was only late last week, just days before a coronial inquest started, that the surviving victims found out that a foreshadowed Crown Solicitor’s challenge, overseen by Mr Snelling, would not be proceeding.
Throughout the past week, and countless other controversies during the three decades I’ve been a journalist on The Advertiser, the common thread has been the complete and abject failure of bureaucrats, policymakers, leaders and politicians to simply say sorry.
It is not a problem unique to SA, far from it. Governments do it across the nation, across the globe. It is called damage control. So-called experts are paid small fortunes to advise politicians and bureaucrats about crisis management.
But the real problem is the lawyers and the insurers, whose first instructions to clients are to deny liability to minimise the risk of successful litigation. To obfuscate, deny, avoid, retaliate, delay.
Perhaps it is time our leaders ignored such advice. Just ask the archbishops of the Catholic and Anglican churches in Adelaide who, instead of listening to insurers and lawyers, could have saved child abuse victims years of unnecessary trauma if only they had said sorry when they were first approached for help and support decades ago.
Colin James is Opinion Editor of The Advertiser