• Private certifier gets nailed – depaNews November 2010
  • Wake up and don't worry - depaNews February 2011
  • HR professionals – depaNews January 2009
  • Upper Hunter gets coy – depaNews March 2011
  • BPB kills off B1 & B2 - depaNews July 2009
  • Councillors behaving badly Part One - depaNews December 2009
  • Councillors behaving badly Part Two - depaNews December 2009
  • Who is Peter Hurst? - depaNews August 2010
  • It's time to go, Peter Part One - depaNews September 2006
  • It's time to go Peter Part Two - depaNews December 2006
  • BPB survey on accreditation – depaNews November 2008
  • Improbable things start to come true – depaNews June 2010
  • Sex, lies and development – depaNews February 2008
  • Pizza man feeds non-members – depaNews April 2011
  • Bankstown wins HR Award – depaNews December 2010
  • Love him or loathe him - depaNews October 2007
  • Good Bad & Ugly issue – depaNews November 2010
  • Upper Hunter lets the dogs out - depaNews February 2011
  • IRC puts brakes on belligerent seven – depaNews June 2009
  • It's Tweedledum and not Tweedledumber - depaNews March 2007
  • 28 April International Day of Mourning - depaNews April 2009
  • IRC orders Hurst 'apology' published - depaNews December 2010
  • Debate on IR policy – depaNews August 2007
  • Developer agrees to apologise – depaNews November 2010
  • OH&S Day of Mourning – depaNews April 2009

The Development and Environmental Professionals' Association (depa)

Welcome to the depa website. We are an industrial organisation representing professional employees working in local government in New South Wales in a variety of jobs in the fields of environmental health, public health, building and development control and planning.

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Private certifier gets nailed – depaNews November 2010

Laurel and Hardy

Bernie gets nailed but who is Phillip Hayward?

Please stop sending us links to the decision of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal in Building Professionals Board v Cohen (No 2)(2010) NSWADT 266.

It gives us no pleasure (well, not much) to see someone who renounced employment in local government like Bernie did, fined, having his certificate of accreditation cancelled and banned from re-applying for two years and being disqualified from being an accredited certified director or otherwise involved in the management of any business doing this stuff for five years.

And that was nowhere near as severe as the BPB wanted because the BPB was sick of the constant number of complaints and allegations against him.

We can't speculate about Bernie's work at Liverpool, Parramatta and other places, but we would be surprised if this is how it operated while he worked in local government.

But in providing a character reference of sorts for Bernie, someone who should know better made it clear that they think local government is loose with process and that person is Phillip Hayward, Honorary Secretary of the Institution of Surveyors and a bloke with a pretty impressive looking history. His personal profile on the Institution of Surveyors' site reveals that since 2005, not only has he been a non judicial member of the General Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, but he "is a member of the Disciplinary and Accreditation Committees of the Building Professionals Board."

He gave evidence on Bernie's behalf in the Administrative Decisions Tribunals and there is a summary of that evidence in paragraph 19 of the Decision where it claims he made "a case for some understanding to be shown of loose practice by certifiers from Mr Cohen’s background, that of a senior inspector in local government."

We will be taking up the appropriateness of this bloke’s offensive and defamatory observations against local government employees both with Mr Hayward and the BPB.

 

Robbo's Pearls...

What’s happening to the senior staff changes?

On 15 October 2021 the LGNSW Board, spurred on by a second recommendation from another ICAC investigation (Operation Dasha) to get rid of the “no reason” sacking of senior staff, unanimously resolved to do precisely that. LGNSW would now support the views we and the other unions have been expressing for decades. This was a historic consensus.

The consensus was to amend section 340 of the Local Government Act 1993 to ensure that the only Senior Staff positions, on term contracts and denied access to the industrial relations commission would be the general manager. And to amend the Industrial Relations Act to lift the remuneration level for access on unfair dismissals.

All we needed was the OLG and the Government to cooperate. That was close enough to two and a half years ago. 

There was some venal opposition from the usual suspects, but the policy was overwhelmingly reaffirmed at the LGNSW Special Conference on 1 March 2022. That was close enough to two years ago.

In April 2023 a Labor Government was elected in NSW. We all had a reasonable expectation they’d be more supportive of employment changes that reduced the risk of corruption and provided fairer working conditions. They say they are.

What have you blokes been doing?

Hoenig and Minns

It’s in the Minister’s office but nothing’s happening. It has been:

since the Government and the Minister were appointed on 5 April 2023. We are still waiting for the legislative changes required.

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