12 NOVEMBER 2021
ISSUE 318
News
Lest we forget
Memorial Park at The Entrance was a sea of workers and community supporters who donned white shirts and rallied to oppose the NSW Government vaccination mandate. See page 8
Out&About
At 11am on November 11, thousands of people all over the Central Coast paused to observe one minute’s silence in honour of Remembrance Day, as RSL SubBranches throughout the region conducted memorial services.
Lisarow mother and daughter, Bronwyn and Ella Sandeman, have published and released their book The Christmas Story with Daisy and Ziggy. See page 18
Business
See page 3
Hart takes aim at government agencies in reply to Public Inquiry Central Coast Council can’t attract staff, can’t keep staff and can’t get meetings with the State Government. “It’s like nobody wants to know us.” Local politicians, the media and the community “are attacking the hell out of us”, “like a pack of wolves out there”. These were the observations of Council Administrator, Rik Hart, when he held a press conference on November 10 to respond to criticisms of the decisions made to get the Council back on a sound financial footing since the financial crisis. On October 6, 2020, the Council announced it faced
immediate and serious liquidity issues. In November 2020 Hart became acting CEO and since May this year he has been the Administrator. Hart explained the context that drove the decisions he and Interim Administrator Dick Persson made in the weeks and months after the Minister for Local Government suspended the Councillors on October 30, 2020. Hart said over the 12 months he had been at Council he had formed the view that the State Government did not fully understand the consequences of its initial decision to request that Council seek commercial loans to support the business.
“Our experience to date is that none of the state government agencies – Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE), Office of Local Government (OLG) and NSW Audit Office had any experience in dealing with a local government entity being effectively placed into receivership and being required to seek commercial loans,” Hart said. He pointed out the difficulty Council had in dealing with the agencies with no coordination between them and with each of them following their own policy agenda and setting. He said the Council had been
treated like a “piece of carrion sitting there with hyenas pulling them one way and vultures attacking”. He said the State Government kept them at arms length while the Council had to dance to a commercial bank’s tune to secure two loans totalling $150M. The banks actually demanded hard assets rather than future cash from rates as surety for the $100M loan the Council secured in late December, 2020 so some community assets were now mortgaged. Hart said he had tried for three days in December to make contact with the deputy secretary of the Office of Local Government to secure a
statement of support from the State Government to give to the commercial bank which was giving the loan. Eventually he phoned Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Rob Stokes, and the letter came through at the 11th hour. “Without the statement of support from the NSW Government we would have had to close the doors of Central Coast Council, it was that dire,” Hart said. Further attempts to hold an urgent meeting this year with Minister for Customer Service, Victor Dominello, was declined and one with Greg Piper MP postponed. Continued page 4
The new look Hotel Gosford has reopened its doors after 18 months of renovation which included a complete knockdown and rebuild of its restaurant. See page 3
Sport
The 2021 52 Super Series has concluded off the coast of the Reial Club Nàutic de Palma (RCNP), Illes Balears, Spain… See page 39
Puzzles page 22
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