Urgent investigation required into role of Office of the independent Assessor

The Office of the independent Assessor was created with the very best of intentions in the wake of a council scandal, but when it takes on the role of dictating what opinions elected councillors can express in public it’s time for an urgent rethink.

Two months ago in this column, we warned that while it was created with the very best of intentions, the council corruption-busting Office of the independent Assessor was itself in urgent need of being assessed.

Today we repeat that call – and with greater urgency, following the revelations that a Queensland mayor has been ridiculously accused by the OIA of “potential misconduct” for raising concerns in an open council meeting about the planned rollout of the Covid vaccination program in his region.

The victim? Barcaldine Regional Mayor Sean Dillon, who had the temerity to suggest that the vaccine rollout plans hatched by his local public health service were “just not going to work” because he – sensibly – doubted his entire community could be vaccinated in the few days allocated and that not everyone could physically attend the shire hall for their jabs, because of isolation or mobility issues. Mr Dillon added that vaccination was “the thing that we need to try and restore confidence in businesses and community events” and so “I just hope they don’t stuff it up”.

Two weeks later, he was informed he was reasonably suspected of inappropriate conduct because, according to the OIA, “to make such statements in a public forum is not in the best interest of the community”.

Will someone alert George Orwell, because we now live in a state where the government body established to investigate council misconduct is instead dictating what opinions elected councillors can and cannot express in public.

This cannot stand. It is an affront to free speech, and further evidence that the OIA is out of control. It is a body the parliament – to which it reports – must urgently rein in.

The OIA was created in the wake of the scandal relating to former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale’s criminal behaviour, as a body to “receive, assess, investigate and prosecute complaints” about the conduct of local councillors.

The hope was the OIA would give the focus to such complaints that the Crime and Corruption Commission had clearly not been able to, for whatever reason.

The then-local government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe lauded the OIA’s establishment in December 2018 as: “The start of a new era of accountability, integrity and transparency as we rebuild the community’s faith and trust in local government.” The best we can now say is that at least he meant well.

Someone else who apparently meant well at the time was the respected and experienced crime investigator appointed as the inaugural independent Assessor, Kathleen Florian. She pledged that her focus in the job would be on “complaints of … serious allegations of misconduct”. And we agree that keeping a firm eye on the behaviour of those almost-600 Queenslanders elected to local governments is critical, particularly considering our recent past. Indeed, the OIA has been busy wading through about 1000 complaints made against those councillors every year. This is important work in our democracy, and – again – we support it.

The OIA was formed in the wake of a scandal involving former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale. Picture: (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

But something has gone awry in the way the OIA is interpreting the councillors’ code of conduct, a pretty simple 13-point list of standards that – among other things – dictates those elected shouldn’t turn up drunk to meetings, that they should treat people with respect, and they should strive to maintain the public’s trust in the council.

In this instance, it seems the OIA has decided that Mr Dillon should have first raised his concerns with public health officials “rather than in an open meeting of council” – and that not doing so is misconduct!

But one of the cornerstones of our democracy is freedom of speech and expression. And further, people elected by their community to represent them should never be unilaterally gagged by an unelected body such as the OIA.

Sadly, this is not the first instance of such overreach by the OIA. In August, a newspaper – the small Boonah-based Fassifern Guardian and Tribune – was hauled over the coals by the OIA for having run a quote from a local councillor who claimed Ms Florian had said something she later claimed she had not. Asked to run a correction, the editor declined. And for this serious offence – we mock! – two journalists were ordered by the OIA to its star chamber. Talk about overreach.

We said this two months ago in this column, but we say it again here today: there is now clear evidence that something is seriously amiss in the operations of the OIA. The government must act. Today.