Bundaberg Now’s true costs gets cloudier amid 60k claim

Transparency questions around the council’s ratepayer-funded news service remain unanswered, with senior staff continuing to spruik a cost ten times lower than what’s been stated previously.

Bundaberg Regional Council has refused to answer questions concerning the full cost to ratepayers of running its news service Bundaberg Now.

This is despite recent claimed costs being vastly different to those quoted in a previous year.

In an interview with The Australian in December last year, BRC CEO Steve Johnston claimed Bundaberg Now costed just $5000 to run.

This same number has been touted multiple times on social media by Bundaberg Mayor Chief of Staff, Michael Gorey.

It is decidedly different to the figure quoted in speech Mr Gorey made at the National Local Government IT Conference in Coffs Harbour on December 6, 2019, which was also published to his LinkedIn page.

Mr Gorey said at the time the cost including journalists was “ … about $60,000 per year and we’ve reduced our newspaper advertising by $90,000 per year.”

These were not the only costs quoted.

“Bundaberg Now uses WordPress, which is free,” Mr Gorey said at the time.

“We’ve spent about $4000 on development including a commercial theme, plugins and hosting.

“We spent about $20,000 on marketing in the first six months to build brand awareness.

“We employed a part-time journalist to cover community events on weekends.

“The team working on Bundaberg Now comprises myself, two full-time communications officers, the part-time journalist, a video producer and a multimedia trainee.”

The NewsMail contacted Bundaberg Regional Council on Friday asking for clarification on these numbers, why Mr Gorey and Mr Johnston continued to claim the cost of operating the site was $5000 when Mr Gorey had previously told local government workers the cost was $60,000 with wages.

The council had still not responded at the time of publication.

In December, Federal Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher called for the publication to be flagged with the ACCC, Queensland Electoral Commission, Australian Press Council and the Queensland Minister for Local Government.

He said Bundaberg Now raised “serious concerns from the perspective of those who recognise the importance of independent sustainable media outlets being able to hold Government to account”.

In an email dated April 13, 2021 and released under RTI last year, Cr May Mitchell received advice from The Department of State Development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning (DILGP) recommending the CEO remove Mr Gorey’s administrator access to both the Facebook and website of Bundaberg Now.

Ms Mitchell contacted CEO Steve Johnston with this advice, expressing her concerns surrounding “good governance” on the back of Mr Gorey’s appointment to Mayor’s Chief of Staff after he served as Executive Officer of the Communications Department.

The advice was forwarded on to Mr Johnston for action, however, it is unknown whether Mr Gorey’s access to the news website has been revoked.

According to RTI documents released in June last year, a spokesman for the DILGP advised Mr Gorey’s access should be removed by the CEO “for good governance”.

“Mr Gorey not being an administrator of the page will strengthen this clear separation (between the Mayor’s office and communications).”

The council did not respond to questions regarding whether Mr Gorey continued to retain administrator access despite transparency and integrity issues being identified by the state government’s Local Government department.