Editorial: No sequel to this debacle

EDITORIAL: FINALLY, the saga of the dysfunction at Glenorchy City Council is nearing an end, with Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein announcing that the laws to sack the suspended councillors have taken effect.

Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein. Picture: MATHEW FARRELL

FINALLY, the saga of the dysfunction at Glenorchy City Council is nearing an end, with Local Government Minister Peter Gutwein announcing that the laws to sack the suspended councillors have taken effect.

It comes as a blessed relief for long-suffering ratepayers — and not a moment too soon.

This shambles has lumbered through the Board of Inquiry process and through multiple court hearings and rounds of appeal for too long.

It has consumed time and resources that could have been spent on far more important matters and has robbed ratepayers of the effective local representation they deserve.

It has been obvious from the start that a group of councillors unhappy with the elevation of a new and popular reformist mayor have placed their own interests ahead of their duties as elected representatives.

And they were aided by a small number of council staff.

The unfolding disaster has been reported in detail from the very start by the Mercury.

While the direct election of mayors posed no real problem for 27 of the state’s 29 councils, which accepted the verdict of the democratic process and got on with the job, it proved too difficult for both Huonville and Glenorchy to manage without resorting to pointless infighting.

In both cases, elected officials just somehow couldn’t manage to work together. In both cases, the role of senior staff was critical. In both cases, the councils have now been sacked.

Still to come in the Glenorchy saga is the final report of the Board of Inquiry.

It will name names and lay blame. For many, it will be uncomfortable reading and will not reflect well on some of those involved.

For some, there will be a reckoning at the ballot box. For others, it will perhaps be in court.

It will be bruising, and so it should be. The public deserves to know the truth. Only a small few will emerge with their reputations intact.

Hopefully, some of those who sat around the council table will have, by now, developed a capacity for honest reflection on their role in this fiasco.

Hopefully too, this State Government — or the next — will make changes to the Local Government Act which are so obviously needed.

For a start, the Board of Inquiry process needs to be improved, to speed it up and deliver more reliable outcomes which are resistant to time-wasting court challenges.

And the minister must be given the confidence to use findings to dismiss general managers, councillors or mayors if the circumstances demand it — rather than being restricted to the blunt measure of throwing out entire councils.

Ratepayers of any council cannot afford to go through another debacle like that which has beset Glenorchy since 2015.

Yesterday’s development is welcome, inevitable and well past time.

We should all now look forward to fresh council elections in January, so the ratepayers of Glenorchy can finally get the council they deserve.