The Power Of 3

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday December 13, 2008

MARIO CHRISTODOULOU

Nine months after assuming control of Wollongong City Council, the three administrators have earned a grudging respect from staff and the community. They have developed a reputation for getting things done, although managers talk of punishing workloads underpinned by an unforgiving attitude towards delays. MARIO CHRISTODOULOU reports.

THERE was no escaping the fact that as Wollongong Lord Mayor Alex Darling opened the council meeting on Monday March 3 this year, the council was on the verge of being sacked.

The previous Friday, Independent Commission Against Corruption Commissioner Jerrold Cripps, QC, said he was considering the possibility of recommending civic offices be vacated.

The next day's headlines read "Sack call as council faces quiz", "ICAC prepares to sack council" and "Time's up for a council mired in corruption".

It was a period that then NSW Premier Morris Iemma described as the "ugliest" of his government, and it was this atmosphere that prevailed on Level 10 of the council chambers when Wollongong's remaining councillors met for what they rightly suspected would be their last meeting.

"I've met nobody who has not felt stunned and betrayed by the recent unfolding events - it has been an experience beyond our imagination," Labor councillor David Brown said at the meeting.

Inside Gabrielle Kibble's Potts Point home, the television news and the newspapers were also painting an increasingly glum picture of Wollongong council's prospects of surviving the crisis intact.

There was little surprise when on March 4 Commissioner Cripps recommended the council be sacked and administrators appointed.

The next day under the Illawarra Mercury's page one headline "MEET OUR NEW MASTERS" sat the pictures of Colin Gellatly, Robert McGregor and Mrs Kibble, once considered three of the most powerful public servants in NSW.

Council officers were openly nervous about the appointments, after all, from now on they would answer to one of their own.

It's been more than nine months but, ever the public servants, the three remain tight-lipped on their memories of those heady days in February and March.

"I don't know if you are going to get any of us to answer that," Mrs Kibble said.

Dr Gellatly, however, relented but offered few details: "It all happened very quickly, we were asked whether we were interested in doing this role and a decision was made - there wasn't a whole lot of due diligence."

Once settled in, what they found in Wollongong was an incomprehensible management plan, an illogical staffing structure and a sceptical public who viewed their appointment, by the same political party which stood to lose from democratic elections, with suspicion.

On her first visit to Wollongong after her appointment, Mrs Kibble assembled the council's bruised and demoralised planning department for a meeting.

"I talked to the department on the first day I arrived in order to make clear what I as an administrator expected ... and the fact that we supported them and were going to stand with them," she said.

Many of the staff present would have known Mrs Kibble, if only by reputation.

The daughter of former governor-general Sir John Kerr, the feared and respected Mrs Kibble was once the head of the NSW Department of Planning.

A woman who was said to have broken barriers for women in the public service, Mrs Kibble has been described as "tough, fair and fearless".

"Everyone will be so careful (speaking publicly of Mrs Kibble) because they all have something to lose," said former planner and architecture columnist Elizabeth Farrelly in 1992.

This reputation seems to sit comfortably with Mrs Kibble. She recalls with a smile her days while still head of the Department of Planning when staff would peek around her office door to gauge her mood.

"The general litmus test of whether I was in a bad mood is when someone looked in the door and I wasn't smiling or laughing. The word went out that I was in a bad mood," she said.

"But I haven't found here the staff being intimidated into not giving their views."

NSW executive director of the Australian Property Council Ken Morrison describes Mrs Kibble as a "decision maker".

" She is tough-minded, she understands the system and the components of the system, planning process, development cycles and politics," he said.

"She is beyond repute in terms of personal integrity."

The anxiety of staff under the administrators has found its voice in the seemingly innocuous elevator chatter of managers complaining of being asked to produce more in-depth reports to tighter deadlines.

Intimately familiar with the inner workings of government bureaucracies, the administrators tolerate few excuses and expect their directions to be followed.

From day one, the administrators told staff to raise the bar in their reports, simplify the language and make them less jargonistic.

Once a month, the three meet at Wollongong's council chambers, seated not in the 13 seats allocated for councillors, but at the table once set aside for the lord mayor.

At the last council meeting on November 25, the administrators withdrew an item because they were unhappy with the quality of the report. It wasn't the first time.

On her first day, Mrs Kibble recalls being presented with the council's management plan which acts as the core strategic document for council's operations.

"It was virtually unintelligible," she said. "We were told that's what the councillors want, it defies the imagination that the councillors ever really understood or comprehended what was in the management plan - it was so dense and so unintelligible."

Few are prepared to go on the record about the administrators, but stories that seep out of council's Burelli St headquarters are of a punishing workload coupled with an unforgiving attitude for delays.

Residents who recall community meetings speak of administrators openly overruling staff.

Dr Gellatly admits that the administrators together have "been pushing a little harder than what (staff) expect to at this stage".

"We have been trying to impose our professionalism on the council," he said.

Mr McGregor, who is charged with managing the city's finances, believes the new workload has been a challenge for some staff.

"It is challenging for people here who are not accustomed to meeting firm deadlines and being accountable for delivering projects on time and within cost and to the right quality."

Accustomed to having vast government bureaucracies under their control, staff quietly fear the administrators have simply assumed their former bureaucratic roles of driving managers as they once did within the state government bureaucracy.

These same staffers quietly suggest that in pushing the organisation to its limits, the three are coming close to violating the council's code of conduct, which states: "Administrators must not ... contact a member of the staff of the council on council-related business unless in accordance with (council) policy ... authorised by the council and the general manager."

But they agree that the approach has delivered results. In only nine months, the three have proven to be decisive, delivering on issues where previous administrations have dithered.

Since coming to power, the three have secured state funding for the refurbishment of Wollongong Town Hall, exhibited three definitive options for the future of Crown St Mall, started construction on two phases of the Blue Mile and brought into place an independent hearing and assessment panel. They are now considering imposing parking meters aimed at solving the city's transport needs.

They have also proven adept at tackling controversial issues. Together they rejected a valid but unpopular proposal for a gunshop at Fairy Meadow, dismissed an application for bedsitter accommodation at Keiraville, initiated an investigation of the suspicious zoning of two mansions connected with developer Frank Vellar and brought in a belt-tightening budget aimed at consolidating finances and injecting more money into infrastructure renewal.

The three also instituted a comprehensive system of community consultation aimed at forging closer ties with the community.

But having spent a career answering to government ministers in one way or another, the three realise that being unelected does come with its own set of advantages.

"We do have more latitude in not having to worry about a constituency," Dr Gellatly said.

"We've got an opportunity while we are here ... to get things in place based on professional, merit-based decisions."

The three will not be drawn on how long they intend to stay in Wollongong. They file six-monthly reports to the Minister for Local Government which will underpin any government decision to bring back democracy, but say they have not discussed any end-date.

"This is not an ideal form of government," Mrs Kibble said. "But it gives us a pause in order to get things completely back on track for an elected government to come back."

COUNCIL OF THREE: MEET THE ADMINISTRATORS

Robert McGregor, AM

Former CEO of NSW Health, CEO of Chief Secretary's Department, the NSW Ambulance Service and the NSW Department of Industrial Relations.

Dr Col Gellatly, AO

Former roles: head of Department of Premier and Cabinet, chair of Redfern Waterloo Authority, Pillar Corporation (Wollongong-based superannuation administration), member of State Water Board, council member of University of New England and a member of the UNE Foundation.

Gabrielle Kibble, AO

Former head of the Department of Planning, director of Sydney Olympic Park Authority and chair of the NSW Heritage Council.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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