Council describes Office of Local Government's audit proposal as "repugnant"

OLG is currently seeking the views and feedback of councils and other stakeholders on the draft guidelines prior to finalising them, which would require councils to appoint an audit, risk and improvement committee (ARIC).

At its Ordinary Council Meeting on October 25, Council made the decision to write to OLG expressing their objection to the proposal and requesting it and its current timetable be withdrawn.

Councillor Judi Smith said ARICs were important but the new proposal would be unworkable.

"This council already has an ARIC and has had one for a couple of years, it will need to be changed if these new proposals go through," she said.

"I think the proposal is really a knee-jerk reaction to what has been happening in a couple of councils."

For his part Cr Ray Walsh said the proposal was 'repugnant'.

"The fact that it gives a non-elected group of people a role that councillors and the mayor should be fulfilling, don't get me wrong I'm very much in favour of the internal order that we have at the moment, but this just goes far too far," he said.

"In my opinion it's emasculating councils, putting the delegates who were elected by the people as a council, in an extremely difficult position hamstringing them in their decision-making."

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Cr Peter Wright said the proposal could put unnecessary pressure in attracting people to be on a council.

"In 2019 we sent in some comments on the proposal, they don't appear to have been listened to or discussed by the people involved or told us why our points weren't right or wrong," he said.

"It's going to make it very difficult for people that want to be involved in Council from the shire or community."

He said the ARICs could also put pressure on councils financially, especially more remote councils.

"I don't think they realise how difficult it's going to be to fulfill these external positions on different ARICs especially when you go out past the Newell Highway, isolated councils, big areas with small budgets, will now have a very overarching, extensive ARIC committee to operate under," he said.

"They've just gone too far and it's a pity they haven't got an Office of State Government to oversee the operations there, it seems like they can do what they like, we're the small people and they pick us off one by one."

Cr Bill West said he was concerned by the types of powers the proposal would give ARICs over their respective councils.

"Not only is this going to be a significant cost for this council and other councils, but in some ways is eroding the basic democratic principle," he said.

"It brings in to question some of the independence councillors may have in their role, in terms of what they should be doing and how they should be doing it."

Cr West said he wasn't able to determine what the proposal was designed to achieve apart from "flowery words about greater accountability, transparency".

"This is the same mob that brought us the Fit for the Future and the same mob that brought us the amalgamations of local government bringing two broke councils into one big broke council," he said.

"The standard we walk past is the standard we accept so I'll support you my colleagues in saying we should not be walking past this but fighting it."

Cr West said the proposal raised the two biggest issues for local governments.

"One the red tape that we have to deal with the cost shifting and the second one, and I don't mean we should be charging our rate payers more, is rate pegging," he said.

"So on one hand we've got to do better but we've got to do better with less and that I think is totally unreasonable and unfair to be judged on."

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