New Ipswich mayor Teresa Harding cleans closet after corruption investigation
Just months after being elected, Ipswich’s first conservative mayor in 50 years is taking a broom to the Labor town’s corruption-riddled council.
Just months after being elected, the first conservative mayor of Ipswich in more than half a century is taking a broom to the Labor city’s corruption-riddled council.
Teresa Harding says she wants to shed the image of corruption and will bring accountability to the council’s business entities set up by disgraced former mayor Paul Pisasale.
Queensland’s corruption watchdog found the secretive businesses played a significant role in the culture of secrecy that led to more than 15 people being charged — including Pisasale and his successor, Andrew Antoniolli — and the former council being sacked.
Labor-aligned Pisasale was sentenced last year to two years in jail and is facing further corruption charges.
Ms Harding, whose convincing win in the March election was an ominous harbinger for the Labor Party’s hold on the region in the October state election, said she wanted to rescue the image of the working-class city, 40km southwest of the Brisbane CBD.
The glass cabinets near the mayor’s office which once famously bore Pisasale’s eccentric collection of teacups from around the world are now empty, as are the halls and storage cupboards that held hundreds of memorial items purchased with council funds at auctions.
The clean-out has extended to the shrouded books of Ipswich City Developments, Ipswich City Enterprises and Ipswich City Properties.
In a bid to win back community trust, the council has launched an online “transparency and integrity hub” featuring six gigabytes of data exposing financial transactions of the council-owned entities and providing ultra-detailed records of councillors’ expenses and the council’s ongoing expenditure.
“It is an Australian first and we are publishing a wealth of detailed financial info that no other council in Australia has done,” Ms Harding said.
“We are the opposite of what the previous council was about. We will be accountable to the people of Ipswich. They work hard to pay their rates and they deserve to know exactly how that money is being spent.”
Following the council’s dismissal in 2018, interim administrator Greg Chemello commissioned an independent audit that revealed the council’s failed Ipswich City Properties venture had a net loss of more than $78m.
Legal restrictions prohibited the council from publishing some data, mostly due to privacy reasons, although Ms Harding intends to release more information. “I think the hub will help restore trust,” she said.
“It will improve morale for council staff so they can say they work for a reputable organisation that they can be proud to work for. People who work in the public sector want to work for good governments, not dodgy ones.”
Ms Harding, who formerly worked for the Department of Defence and served in the army, ran as a Liberal National Party candidate for the local Labor-held seat of Blair in the 2013 and 2016 federal elections.
Her election has sent shockwaves through the ALP, with some Labor insiders saying they fear they could lose seats in the region in the state election to be held on October 31.
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