Off the Record: Labor minister Tom Koutsantonis hits mute button, Mark Hamilton announces Adelaide Town Hall bid
In Off the Record this week, Koutsantonis goes quiet on Covid numbers, an old face wants to return to the City Council and a former Liberal MP shows good manners.
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In Off The Record this week, Kouts goes quiet on Covid numbers, an old face wants to return to the “problematic” Adelaide City Council and a former Liberal MP shows good manners to his younger rival.
Back again
Former deputy lord mayor Mark Hamilton believes he has what it takes to fix the “problematic” Adelaide City Council.
So much so that the former councillor and two-time lord mayoral candidate has decided to run again for a seat in the Adelaide Town Hall chamber.
The city-based lawyer and North Adelaide resident has announced he will stand as an independent in the Central Ward at this November’s local government elections.
With a boundary change creating four ward councillor positions, instead of three, there is a good chance Hamilton could win even if he only gets around 200 votes.
Announcing his intentions on Friday, Hamilton took aim at the council’s dominant Team Adelaide faction and Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor.
Hamilton said he wanted “to help end the dysfunction and chaos which is widely recognised as the hallmark of the current council”.
“This is the most problematic Adelaide City Council in at least a generation,” said his media statement.
“The iron grip which the Lord Mayor and her dominant faction, Team Adelaide, have over the council needs shattering in favour of a range of independent, community-minded candidates.”
Among them are expected to be political allies and existing councillors Anne Moran, Phillip Martin, Greg Mackie and Keiran Snape.
Off the Record wonders what they think about Hamilton’s description of their council as dysfunctional, problematic and chaotic, considering Martin and Moran were named in a report as two of the main contributors towards its toxic internal culture.
No doubt the pair will keep blaming Team Adelaide, which next Tuesday will welcome back Alexander Hyde after he failed to win the seat of Waite for the Liberals at last month’s state election.
Mute button
Noticeably absent from social media this week when South Australia recorded its highest number of new Covid cases in one day of 6091 was Labor’s Tom Koutsantonis.
A prolific user of Twitter, “Kouts” was a frequent commentator during the pandemic, regularly claiming it was mishandled by former Liberal premier Steven Marshall.
For months on end he took pot shots at Marshall and his government while posting the latest number of Covid cases in the state.
Koutsantonis particularly was critical of the decision to reopen the state’s borders last September.
All this seems to have changed on Saturday, March 19, when Labor annihilated Marshall’s government in its landslide victory.
Since then, Koutsantonis has hit the mute button on the Covid numbers, with his last post about the virus remaining March 18 – one day before the election.
Which must, going by his Twitter account, be the day Covid magically disappeared in SA.
The sudden loss of interest by Koutsantonis in broadcasting the figures has not been lost on some Twitter users.
Among them is “Dave Lloyd”, who told him he had found “myself confused as to why you would stop posting them since taking office”.
Then there was “Uncle Toby”, who questioned whether the Covid tweets before the state election were done for ulterior reasons.
Whatever has been Koutsantonis’ reasons for his sudden loss of interest, the reality is that Covid numbers are still in their thousands each day.
The information is contained in daily updates released to the media by SA Health which contain tables detail the latest cases, deaths and hospitalisations.
Just don’t expect to see them any time again soon on Koutsantonis’s Twitter account.
Climate change
In events reminiscent of Yes Minister, an overeager cabinet office must have presumed new Environment Minister Susan Close would want to change the name of her department when she took charge.
While on the Opposition frontbench, Close was spokeswoman for the “environment, water and climate change” and, separately, industry and higher education.
Following Labor’s election victory last month, someone, somewhere, in the Department of Premier and Cabinet came up with the idea of formally changing the name of the Department for Environment and Water to the Department for Climate, Environment and Water.
Changing departmental names costs tens of thousands of dollars for new stationery, signage, social media channels, websites, official publications and external branding.
When the change went as far as an official notice in the Government Gazette, the brakes were quickly applied.
While Close had no objection to the word “climate” being added, the former public servant within – ironically – the environment department, said she did not want to see a waste of resources.
“It was just one of those slips where we didn’t communicate properly with each other during the early days of transition,” she told Off the Record. “And it got fixed in a week.”
Parting gift
While there was rancour among some Liberals comprehensively beaten by Labor opponents in the state election, Richard Harvey was a role model of how not be a sore loser.
Harvey was defeated in his marginal northeastern Adelaide seat of Newland by 25-year-old Tea Tree Gully councillorOlivia Savvas.
Instead of taking to social media to vent about his loss, Harvey extended the hand of friendship to his young successor.
Savvas posted a photograph this week on Twitter of a bottle of sparkling wine, card and chocolate fish left for her by Harvey in his former Modbury electorate office.
“We live in the greatest country on earth – the civility of our electoral process and Richard’s graciousness are testament to that,” she wrote.
If only some other Liberal losers had been so humble.
How good is democracy? @RichardMHarvey left a kind card, local wine, and Haigh’s cod (a joke at leaving a fish in the office) on my new desk.
— Olivia Savvas MP (@OliviaSavvas) April 5, 2022
We live in the greatest country on earth - the civility of our electoral process and Richard’s graciousness are testament to that! pic.twitter.com/jd071g7i23
Heritage matters
Former Adelaide city town planner Michael Llewellyn-Smith is a conservative individual not known for being outspoken.
So when the retired Planning Assessment Commission president raised a few eyebrows when he publicly lashed Gawler Council over an aborted bid to set up a separate planning panel to deal with heritage issues.
Resigning as chairman of the council’s independent assessment panel in protest, Llewellyn-Smith wrote a stinging letter to mayor Karen Redman saying he was “disappointed and dismayed”.
The former Adelaide city councillor told Ms Redman that trying to set up the new panel was “really naive”, “quite offensive”, “insulting”, “untenable” and “completely unacceptable”.
“It was very clearly a vote of no confidence in the professionalism of the independent members of the existing Council Assessment Panel (CAP) being able to assess a development application involving a heritage item,” he wrote.
Llewellyn-Smith told Ms Redman that remarks she had made while chairing a council meeting discussing the proposal were “rather inappropriate and not relevant to the motion before you”.
To reinforce his displeasure, Llewellyn-Smith went through his rather impressive CV, telling Ms Redman he held “a Master’s degree in architecture from Cambridge University, a Master’s degree in planning from Sydney University and a PhD from the School of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Adelaide”.
Pointing out he lived in a renovated heritage cottage in the Adelaide CBD, Llewellyn-Smith said that while he was the City of Adelaide town planner, he “instigated the first City of Adelaide Heritage Study, managed the listing of Local Heritage Places and introduced the Heritage Incentives Scheme for owners received many awards”.
Off the Record gets the feeling the pair will not be swapping Christmas cards this year.
Key roles
With Prime Minister Scott Morrison widely expected to announce the federal election date on Sunday, two South Australians are set to spearhead the Liberal campaign as the party’s official spokespeople.
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham will reprise his role as spokesman, based in the Brisbane campaign headquarters.
It is understood Families and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston is likely to be a Canberra-based spokeswoman.
These roles are considered plum appointments for both major parties, because they are handed to people considered able to damage the opponent while staying on message.
The role boosted Senator Birmingham’s career, as it did for Labor rival Penny Wong in 2007.
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