Stability, not Constance

Member for South Coast, Liza Butler, said Shoalhaven Mayor Patricia White has lost the support of her voters because of events in Council since White was elected.

Butler didn't hold back in yesterday's interview with Chance Hanlon and Bec Tucker on their Triple U Brekkie Show.

When asked if she thought Patricia White would win a hypothetical Mayoral election next week, Butler said "I don't think she would".

"Because I'm in the community every day and people tell me that they voted for her, but they don't feel she's living up to what she told them that she would do," Butler said.

"Yes, they have buyer's remorse."

Butler agreed with the Member for Gilmore, Fiona Phillips' strident criticism of ex-Liberal politician Andrew Constance being appointed Shoalhaven Council's CEO and said the opposition had "nothing to do with personality or anything else".

"My office was inundated with emails and phone calls upon the announcement of the new CEO and it's not just one political party – it was across the political spectrum because people have a real concern about what's happening in the Shoalhaven now," Butler said.

"If you don't count Brian Barrett (the recent interim CEO), Andrew (Constance) will be my fourth Council CEO in three years.

"I used to know every staff member and director and who to go to for whatever I needed to ask.

"I absolutely have no idea anymore. We've got so many people in acting positions, we need stability.

"People just want to know that the process was right and we have the best person for the job and that's the end of the story."

Hanlon said the Office of Local Government's preliminary investigation into Andrew Constance's appointment as Shoalhaven CEO was "good to see, great to see".

He noted the "scathing" comments of Fiona Phillips, who attracted national headlines stating that she had "lost all confidence in the Shoalhaven Mayor and Shoalhaven City Council" and was formally registering her discontent with the Minister of Local Government, Ron Hoenig.

"It reeks of 'jobs for Liberal mates', and does not pass the pub test," Phillips said in a press release within hours of the Council's announcement about Constance being crowned CEO.

"This smacks of political bastardry - there must have been other applicants on the merit list with local government employment experience."

That assumption highlights a big part of the problem.

The CEO recruitment process was shrouded in confidentiality and privacy protection for the 37 applicants, so the public cannot know who else did apply and what their resumes looked like.

All we know is that the position was first offered to someone with strong environmental credentials, from local government in Newcastle, who turned the $400,000+ salary offer down (for an, as yet, unknown reason).

That information came from one of Council's selection committee members, Cr Bob Proudfoot, who said the other applicants were "quite incredible" with "spectacular" resumes and that he sided with half the councillors who did not support the appointment of Andrew Constance.

So, if it's not about politics, what makes so many people so furious about Andrew Constance becoming Shoalhaven Council's CEO? And is their suspicion about cronyism justified?

To help answer that, I looked at LinkedIn resumes of 13 current local government CEOs around NSW to see how Andrew Constance fits the mould.

In short: he doesn't.

Andrew Constance lists no university degree or other tertiary qualification and he has never held a job in local government or in management within other industries.

Constance is described on his LinkedIn profile as a self-employed consultant since resigning from his role as State Member for Bega politics in 2021

Constance and his supporters, especially Mayor Patricia White and the experienced executive recruiter Stephen Blackadder who advertised and managed the CEO search, say Constance's long political career including being Speaker of the House and Treasurer of NSW, make him eminently qualified for the job.

But the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) reported that a fundamental clash between democratically elected representatives and independent bureaucrats has led to 'political promiscuity' and the 'rise of advisers' who embody the irreconcilable tensions in governance between policy agenda and the objective assessment of evidence.

"One argument, that voters elect their governments and expect administrators to fall into line with the public will, drives politicians’ desire for a more responsive public service," says ANZSOG research.

Another argument says bureaucracies themselves have a direct duty to the service of the country.

They have a constitutional identity of their own and are trustees of the public good, which involves an independent mandate to protect the state institutions from political excesses.

In a letter yesterday to the Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, Triple U FM radio interviewer, Colin Hesse, referenced the 'current brouhaha' over Andrew Constance as Shoalhaven CEO and made a great suggestion to increase the chances of Councillor independence and minimise political meddling by the State in local council affairs.

"There must be term limits in local government," Hesse wrote.

"There must be reasonable concern that Councillors serving for many decades will develop relationships with businesspeople or developers that could result in compromising councillors' clarity around key planning decisions and other issues."

Meanwhile, as if Shoalhaven's partisan optics are not already uncomfortably magnified, Constance opted to sit alongside Mayor Patricia White not only for the lengthy and live-streamed 'press conference' last week, but also for an interview with Chance and Bec on Triple U the following day. Next on the tour is the Berry Forum community meeting.

A media introduction and Q&A is fair enough, especially given the public interest.

But parading across the region with the Mayor promoting an "open for business" sales pitch to developers or community bodies, is unorthodox, at best.

The Berry Forum is the heart-home of the special Mayoral-appointed Financial Review Panel, in particular Stuart Coughlan, who campaigned savagely for Patricia White to be Mayor (and against the previous CEO, incidentally) before joining with his four accounting colleagues to be the core of the influential, but un-elected, advisory group.

What strikes me is how Andrew Constance, with his long political experience, did not predict this firestorm of disdain from the public – and many Council staff.

Why would he subject himself to this degree of negativity and scrutiny if his background is so impressive that he could choose a less risky and more harmonious job?

Constance made a point of telling the gathered media at last week's press conference that Mayor White did not ask him to apply for the CEO job.

OK... I don't think anyone said she did.

But if Constance had independently aimed his sights on the Shoalhaven CEO role, surely he would have prepared more diligently for the massive responsibility.

So, someone likely courted him.

Someone who takes an ongoing interest in Council meetings. Someone who knows the benefits to a Mayor of having a compliant, or at least cooperative, CEO. And someone who is perhaps still irritated by Liberal Party sensibilities missing out on being a part of this term of Council.

Logically, it follows that Andrew Constance was probably not the only ex-Liberal politician to apply for the Shoalhaven CEO role.

Regardless, Andrew Constance needs to call time on Mayor White's public campaigns of partnership, so he can get on with reading up on the Local Government Act and facing up to the staff reductions the Council voted to enact.

Or does he (and Mayor Patricia White) not care about being respected by the ratepayers who fund their salaries?

In the press conference last week, needing a thick political skin was mentioned, but not as frequently as Constance's calls for kindness and trust.

Of all the pithy, non-specific spin repeated during that media meet-up, one phrase really stood out to me.

Constance defended his appointment saying "every Australian has got the right to work".

Indeed they do.

Of course, most Australians study to earn expensive higher education degrees, commit to years of low-paid apprenticeships, or gradually work their way up the ranks competing for positions that pay a fraction of the salary of a Council CEO.

For those Australians, entitlement has very little to do with it.