July depaNews

The Office of Local Government has released a model social media policy for consultation across the industry. They say it has been developed using “best practice from social media policies of a diverse range of NSW councils, as well as from Commonwealth and State Government agencies.”  The Draft Model Code is relevant for all employees, whether they use a council’s social media, or social media at work for private purposes (which we don’t recommend) or social media for private purposes at home, but may identify themselves as council employees.

We’ve seen it all as desktop computers took over the workplace in parallel with access to the Internet. People using common sense understood the benefits (and more importantly understanding and managing the risks) and foolhardy people using Council communication systems for a whole range of inappropriate purposes.

In those days, Sydney City had such difficulties with employees accessing porn and unacceptable images that they introduced a skin screening filter which stopped everyone circulating or receiving pictures of their family, the kids or their Mum.

There can’t be many more potentially distressing experiences for a union official than attending a meeting with the CEO, accompanying a member who had been given a “Show Cause” letter about why he shouldn’t be sacked because of his consistent breaching of guidelines, with a member who doesn’t quite get it. This is an opportunity the City provided in the past to metaphorically get down on your knees to save your job.

Patient schooling of the member before he threw himself at mercy of the CEO, encouraging him to explain how, while he was suspended over this, his wife had sent him to the other bedroom - and surely never to return. When you’re sprung, we all know it’s about contrition and acknowledgement. It’s one thing to expect that the member is going to do those things rehearsed but it’s another one when they surprise you and immediately say to the CEO, “come on, we’re all adult men here, aren’t we”... The idiot must’ve thought he needed to show cause why he should be sacked. He was.

And there were plenty of those experiences. Everyone has grown up a bit, everyone understands now that it’s the Council that owns the system, and you use it under their rules.

This Draft Code will be the rules across the industry. Submissions close this week but the OLG will accept late submissions, as long as it’s not too late. We will be submitting a submission of our own. An employee’s private use is found in Part 8 and submission or comments go to .

We think it may prejudice those of you who use LinkedIn, but this is a document worth reading and responding to the OLG. And quickly, too.

If you go to the Office of the NSW Building Commissioner’s website, you will see a pretty bold call  that they are “Leading a once-in-a-generation reform of the design and building industry”. Considering the Office has been operating for only two years, with a handful of staff to start, their action and achievements so far are most impressive.

We’re always very interested in who was the Private Certifier for these jobs, something not easily found but normally known to our members as building certifiers in the relevant council area. As a plea, first of all, we’d be delighted to hear who the certifier was every time we hear the news of stop work or prohibition orders. Please let us know.

We don’t have a contact in the Office of the NSW Building Commissioner, we have no information at all about who works there, how they operate on site, whether they are ex-employees of local government and therefore probably, once upon a time, members of ours, how many of them there are, or how many of them there will be.

If you know, or are connected, please let us know.

If you click at the top of the page on the right-hand side on “Stop work, prohibition and rectification orders” you are taken to a clear demonstration of the Commissioner’s power to stop work, stop occupation certificates from being issued, or order rectification work to be done, in residential apartment buildings.

As a summary, there’s been only one Stop Work Order, on 8 July 2021 at Bellevue Hill, so someone at Woollahra could tell us about that.

There have been eight Prohibition orders since December 2020 covering Mascot (Bayside Council), Lindfield (Ku-ring-gai Council), Auburn (Cumberland), Asquith (Hornsby), Castle Hill (The Hills), Bellevue Hill (the same development where a stop work order was issued - Woollahra), Manly Vale (Northern Beaches) and Parramatta (Parramatta City).

There have been thirteen Building work rectification orders since November 2020, in the areas of  the councils listed above.

And one Enforceable Undertaking only last week in Castle Hill that, according to the SMH on 27 July (and prompted this article) reported on the Building Commissioner settling with the developer by providing an $11 million safety fund for faults, independent engineering monitoring of the basement for 10 years and the development’s owners’ corporation to receive a twenty year structural guarantee and a ten year commitment to rectify and pay for defects”.

Good job. Imagine what they could do with twice the staff.

Last year’s winner, Sutherland Shire, has gone hard looking for back-to-back awards.

• First it was a member where HR had inappropriately denied him a car allowance when he started, and as a result of our pursuit, agreed to retrospectively pay him for two and a half years of car allowance under the Award, and continue to pay the allowance while ever he worked there;

• then we sprung them breaching their historic Core Enterprise Agreement which has strict requirements about how an employee acting in a higher graded position should be paid, by seriously thinking that a new HR protocol could provide something less, when we all know HR protocols can’t override a legally enforceable entitlement under an Award or an Enterprise Agreement - still being resolved;

• then breaching the obligation in the Splinter Award to pay employees going for a vaccination “to leave, without loss of pay for the time reasonably required to receive ... a vaccination” . They did this by removing current market allowances, meaning there was a loss of pay, and at the same time imposing their own four hour limit - still being resolved.

And don’t even ask how the potty-mouth ex-Mayor is going with building and health standards in his three cafes. No, he hasn’t abused anyone lately, but that’s been hard because as a result of his troubles on the last occasion, a Memorandum of Understanding was developed between Sutherland and Georges River to have the other council’s EHOs conduct inspections for any premises owned or operated by a Councillor - happily resolving any conflict of interest and possible undesirable pressure, and the problem we have seen over the last few years with two of our members being abused by Councillor Pesce.

Those three cafes must comply by now, mustn’t they?

An impressive start but there is one Council in the wings, and while management has changed, others have embraced the concept of hangin’ em high as if they’ve inherited it from those who went before. There’s a place with a real cultural problem.

Maybe a result in Ian Robertson v Office of Local Government, currently being considered by a Senior Member of NCAT, some updates on Sutherland (there can’t be more can there?) or maybe some news on those wanting a lynching.

While we are pursuing Sutherland to remove their unenforceable four hour limit, instead of the Award obligation for them to provide “time reasonably required”, it sounds like there may be other councils out there trying to impose equally unenforceable limits on hours available. This could be bigger than we think.

It’s narky, miserable, counter-productive to getting control of this pandemic by mass vaccination, driven only by penny-pinching, when everyone should be vigourously encouraging vaccination. If other councils are looking at it, it will do them significant reputational damage as well.

And maybe Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong and Shellharbour might be out of lockdown.