One of the five principles of The Local Government Act 2020 (LG Act) is transparency. This is reflected in sections 9, 57 and 58 of the Act.
Section 58 states the decision-making process must be transparent, except when dealing with information that is confidential.
So, information must be publicly available, unless it’s deemed by virtue of the act, as confidential, or its contrary to public interest, else the information must be accessible, understandable to the municipal community and made publicly facilitated by council.
The Campaspe Shire Public Transparency Policy (revised February 20, 2021) provides these reasons that would prevent information being made available.
If the information is confidential, if its contrary to public interest, and if it was inconsistent with Privacy and Data provision, Health Records and Freedom of Information acts.
The public interest test basically states if released the information would harm the community or would exceed the public benefit if released — the possible harm to one or more individuals of the public or damage the community, or involves loss of public funds, or prevents council from functioning, or considerations relating to public interest set out in the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic).
The LG Act protects confidentiality through a secrecy provision — section 125 of the LG Act 2020: 125 Confidential information (1) Unless subsection (2) or (3) applies, a person who is, or has been, a Councillor, a member of a delegated committee or a member of Council staff, must not intentionally or recklessly disclose information that the person knows, or should reasonably know, is confidential information. Penalty: 120 penalty units. (2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the information that is disclosed is information that the Council has determined should be publicly available. (3) … “Confidential information” is defined in section 3 of the LG Act. It contains 12 subsections that describe different types of information that are confidential under the LG Act (unless overridden by sections 125(2) or (3)).
Keeping this in mind and after checking the 12 subsections of Section 125 of the act, that would prevent council’s transparency to the public, on the issue of “The CEO Performance Plan” — as reported in the Riverine Herald Friday April 29, 2022?
Can the mayor confirm what part of The Act prevents transparency to the public on the matter of the CEO’s performance?
Are we to understand council believes somehow, after considering sections 9, 57 and 58, are we to accept that maybe the performance is so good, there’s nothing to see here, or it’s so bad we could not handle the truth, or its contrary to public interest, or would harm the community or would exceed the public benefit if released or it’s just none of our business?
The newspaper already states the CEO salary of $315,000, as well as the CV history provided at the time of engagement, so privacy is already covered, is it for health reasons, is there a commercial reason, if there is, what is it?
According to the Riverine Herald, the mayor said: “the minutes from the confidential meeting, as was the case with closed meetings, would not be made available to the public”.
Considering the items covered above from the LGA 2020 Act — We accept that it’s council who determines what is or is not confidential, so the question is.
What reason within the sections and subsections of the Act, make the minutes of the “Special Meeting for CEO Review” confidential?
— Peter Conway, Echuca
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