Councillor Chris Harris

I have serious concerns about the tender process that appears to have been designed to place the City’s tennis courts under the management of a single operator. Should the recommendation of council staff be adopted the operator at Ruchcutters Bay tennis courts will be tossed out after 25 years of service to the community. The Greens councillors consider such a proposal to be unreasonable & unfair.  At an extraordinary meeting on Monday 1st March (attended by around 200 people protesting the recommendation, shown below) the Clover Moore Party used their numbers to defer the tender process for a second time.  Councillor Doutney and myself, along with the Labor and Liberal Councillors, voted against the motion.

As Greens we have three key concerns with the tender process: shortcomings with information provided to councillors, inconsistent treatment of individual tenderers during the process and a failure of the tender criteria & process to capture the “community benefit” that councillors had requested.

The level of benefit that an applicant could provide to the community was meant to be the most heavily weighted criteria upon which a successful tender was assessed. However the hundreds of emails that Councillors received from the Rushcutters Bay community have provided information about the local operator that should have been presented to Councillors in the staff report on the tenders at the Finance Committee on 15th February 2010.

There has been no performance review of the current tennis court operators at Rushcutters Bay, despite this being required by local government tendering guidelines. As a result the free coaching, court hire & equipment hire to children from Darlinghurst & Plunkett St Public Schools over the past fifteen years was not reported to councillors and could not have been considered in the tender assessment.

Another piece of highly relevant information was a proposed Franks Family scholarship of $100,000 per annum to provide coaching & court time for 40 children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Again this was not reported to councillors and therefore could not have been considered in the tender assessment.

The Greens are also very concerned about the inconsistent treatment of the two tenderers who made direct contact with councillors in order to lobby for their bid. One tenderer was excluded and the other, who ended up as the recommended tenderer, was not.  I have read the “no lobbying” clause in the tender and the emails from tenderers (see attachment 1 below). I can’t see why one was ousted and the other was not. The decision seems biased and unfair.

I have since sought legal advice from a senior counsel Francis Douglas QC who advised that the email from the tenderer who was not excluded  had indeed breeched the tender guidelines (see attachment 2 below). Further the awarding of the tender to the offending tenderer could see such a decision invalidated by a court and damages sought from the City of Sydney.

Once the legal advice was tabled the Clover Moore Party scrambled to defer the process until a more thorough investigation could be carried out, but this is not a positive way forward.  To simply delay a process with so many flaws in it so that just one of those flaws can be investigated, while ignoring all the others, is not in the interest of the community. 

People have invested significant time and effort in writing to Council and turning up to meetings in order to try to make sure the process reflects their very reasonable desires for their community. They deserve better than to have to wait once more for a flawed process to turn out an unsatisfactory outcome.  The process needs to be restarted with criteria that will accurately reflect the benefits that each applicant will provide, and has provided previously, to the community.

Attachment 1- Tenderer not to Solicit Council Personel

Attachment 2 - Legal Advice from Francis Douglas QC

Hot on the heels of their destruction of the habitat area at Orphan School Creek with the freshly laid concrete zig zag path, the Clover Moore Party are at it again across the road in Johnstons Canal with more habitat destruction.  The proposal is a bike path that links the shared pathway emerging from Orphan School Creek as it crosses Wigram Rd at Forest Lodge.

Two pathways have been outlined by City staff. The one favoured by Clover Moore Party councillors  proceeds along the eastern side of the canal between Wigram Rd and a bridge across the canal about 150 metres away. This area contains about 5 metres of council land immediately adjacent to the canal and joins seamlessly with the backyards of 22 terrace homes that front Minogue Crescent. Currently there is a dirt ‘goat track’ that is used by the occasional recreational cyclist, mothers with little kids in prams and people walking their dogs. These uses have happily coexisted with the local residents for years but all that is about to change.

The Lord Mayor’s concrete and steel brigade have voted to build a 2.5 metre wide concrete path with regular 3.5 metre light poles. This new commuter cyclepath will be lit up like a carnival, it will attract a lot more cyclists and totally destroy this idyllic little haven. The impact on the residents will be considerable.

When I visited the site with Greens colleague, Cr Doutney, we saw corellas feeding their young, sulphur crested cockatoos munching the freshly mown grass seed and multiple varieties of birdlife – night time brings out possums & other native animals.

There is a perfectly good alternative route for this section of the cycleway just metres away on the other side of the canal. Booth lane is a very seldom used laneway that hosts a Housing NSW development on one side of the road and a private multi unit development on the other. Both of these have adequate on site parking for residents. The laneway contains 8 parking spaces that could easily be converted into a two way cycleway that terminates at Taylor St. Taylor St is a very wide & quiet dead end street that leads straight into the park where the shared path cycleway will continue down to the parklands around Roselle Bay.

Clover Moore councillors refused to consider the alternative ‘on road’ route but have decided instead on habitat destruction, increased conflict with cyclists and the loss of the peaceful glade enjoyed by the 22 homes along Minogue Cres. This choice is totally unnecessary.

Leichhardt Council will shortly be spending around $700,000 on Taylor St to convert it into a model sustainable street. What better addition to this project than the inclusion of sustainable transport. The traffic movements on Booth Lane and Taylor St are very low and it would be an ideal and easy path for both recreational & commuter cyclists with little potential conflict with cars or pedestrians

Residents of Minogue Cres, who have not been properly consulted, turned up at council on 22nd February to express their view and were refused an opportunity to address councillors when the Clover Moore Party voted as a block to deny them the right to speak. Once again Forrest Lodge residents are being ignored.

Thanks to local resident Alexandra Brunner for images of the site as it is now in it’s unconcreted state.

The City of Sydney Council has been urged by the Greens to provide 18 weeks paid maternity leave for employees in line with an endorsement by the NSW Local Government Association.

Extending the leave from 14 to 18 weeks would show that the City of Sydney values parenting and recognises the huge investment women make to acquire degrees and skills which ultimately benefit not only themselves but the organisation that employs them.

There are very real economic benefits to be gained by an organisation in providing  paid maternity leave. It leads to increased employee productivity and loyalty and reduces recruitment and training costs as the number of employees returning to work after paid maternity leave increases. It also improves morale and job satisfaction.

We need to foster ongoing relationships with our working-mother employees that value their educational investment, hard work and career aspirations.

At the Council meeting on May 11, I asked the CEO to consider extending the maternity leave to 18 weeks in the current round of wage and salary negotiations with unions.

The Greens also want consideration to be given to establishing parental leave for supporting parents of new born and adopted children and to extend maternity leave, where legally possible, to same sex couples.

The motion below was passed unanimously at Council on Monday, May 11.

 MATERNITY LEAVE (S063668)
1. By Councillor Harris -

The City of Sydney Council:
1. Notes that maternity leave provides critical financial support to City of Sydney
employees who choose to care for newborn infants on a full time basis.

2. Notes that there are corresponding economic benefits to the City of Sydney in
retaining skilled and experienced staff, on a full time or part time basis, when staff return to work after the birth of children.

3. Notes the endorsement of 18 weeks maternity leave by the NSW Local
Government Association.

4. Requests that the CEO consider extending maternity leave from 14 weeks to 18 weeks for City of Sydney employees in the current round of wage and salary
negotiations with the Unions.

5. Requests that the CEO report to Council on additional measures the City can take to extend parental leave, such measures:

 (a) being designed to facilitate the needs and personal choices of:
     (i) the parents of a new born child – which could include the biological
         father and mother or a non-biological co-parent, such as in the case of
         same sex couples;
     (ii) persons adopting children; and
     (iii) persons who may assume the care of a child or children, for example,
          as a result of the death or incapacity of their parents;
(b) to include the option of paid leave being available in these circumstances to
parents and other parents responsible for the care of children, other than the
primary care giver. 

Election day for councils across NSW.

Details for the City of Sydney can be found here.

Norman Thompson’s article in The SMH about political donations drew some letters to the editor, shown below.

1. From Clover Moore, 27 August

Independent and transparent

Norman Thompson overlooks that the Greens use similar manoeuvres to misrepresent the cost of their campaigns, including channelling donations through head office and using taxpayer funds from the unaccountable “political education fund” (”Coming clean on donations can be a ‘dirty’ business”, August 26). The Clover Moore independent team has no well-resourced head office, receives no taxpayer funds and, unlike the Greens and other parties, our local campaign donations and costs will be directly reported.

I have consistently refused donations that could compromise my independence. Before the last council elections we accepted a donation from Living Sydney - a political organisation being wound up. It came with no conditions and the unknown sources have no ability to influence us. It was accepted in good faith, disclosed, and has been public for four years.

Clover Moore MP Lord Mayor of Sydney

2. From Lee Rhiannon, 28 August

No Green light to channelling

Clover Moore (Letters, August 27) is wrong when she alleges funding impropriety by the Greens. The Greens do not “channel donations through head office”. Each local group raises and expends its funds locally, but we are obliged by electoral law to make disclosures on a statewide basis.

The Greens do not accept donations from corporations or others with interests in development, liquor, gambling and the like. We spend the funds we receive from the NSW Political Education Fund within the requirements of the law, mostly on educational items and some on party administration. Our claims on this fund are audited and available for public scrutiny.

Lee Rhiannon, MP Sydney

3. From Chris Harris 28 August (unpublished)

Moore misleads again

According to Ms Moore, independents receive “no taxpayer funds” (letters, SMH 27th August) - this is a blatant untruth. In the 2007 state election for the seat of Sydney, Ms Moore won the election and received $17293 in public funds for her efforts. In fact any candidate in a state election who achieves 4% or more is assisted with public funds in this way - The Greens received $6790.

Ms Moore cannot avoid the fact that she accepted $30000 from Living Sydney, Frank Sartor’s old political party, which sourced a majority of its funds from developers and hoteliers. All this was on the public record for years and she should have checked this before she accepted the money.

If Ms Moore is fair dinkum she should return it immediately

Chris Harris
Greens Lord Mayoral Candidate
Chippendale