AUSTRALIA DAY AWARDS
Congratulations to all the Australia Day winners announced on January 26th at a function in Beaudesert. I am sure the media will cover these stories in full. Congratulations also to all of our new citizens sworn in on this day. Tamborine Mountain was well represented in new citizens and award recipients.

Even more time spent on politically motivated complaints
Over Christmas and new year, I spent a good part of my time answering internally generated new OIA complaints and responding to investigation reports (five were listed for the January meeting) with investigators recommending penalties of 100% of investigation costs. Based on past estimates, this could amount to nearly $20,000 in fines if investigator recommendations are followed. As I am denied the opportunity of responding to the allegations in the Council Agenda, I am happy to tell you my description of the complaints in dot point form. You can read the allegations, all of which I dispute, on the January meeting agenda for the last Ordinary Meeting. My detailed responses were not allowed to be given to the public under Scenic Rim’s adopted Investigation Policy.
The five complaints in summary were:
1.      Related to my asking Council Officers in a zoom meeting about enterprise bargaining. The questions were to find out if Senior management contracts were tied to enterprise bargaining pay rises proposed in a new enterprise agreement.
2.      I commented in a public meeting that I recall the CEO commenting that how to deliver a capital works program “Kept him awake at night”. It was claimed these words were “confidential to the Local government” because they may have been said in an Audit committee meeting six months earlier.
3.      I was accused of ignoring a constituent and failing to have my photo taken at an outside function at an Ordinary meeting lunchbreak function with the Small Business Commissioner. There was no shade, and I walked to my car to see if I had a hat, found there wasn’t one, so I went back inside to watch the ceremony from the window upstairs.
4.      In 2020, consultants released a report to Councillors in a confidential briefing, on a customer survey of over 8,000 persons. It showed an extremely poor result with reasons. I applied to have parts of it released under Right to Information, because it was in the public Interest that the unsanitised content be disclosed to the public.
The Council RTI decision maker agreed. The full four pages of the report were released as applied for. The complaint was that the information was confidential to the Local Government and that this confidentiality took precedence over the RTI release. I disagreed. It was the Council itself, by definition under the RTI Act, which released the Information. The Council decision maker did not even consider any Councillor obligation as a factor favouring non-disclosure.
5.      Similarly, I applied under Right to Information to release an excerpt from a confidential report about the proposed renaming of the Botanical Gardens to the Scenic Rim Botanical Gardens. It was important that the public knew of the facts of this case. There was widespread community concern and debate on the matter. The documents were released in full “IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST.” I was accused of releasing information “confidential to the Local Government”, and that the RTI Act did not override the obligation of a Councillor not to release the information under any circumstances. I disagreed. It was the Council itself that released the Information under the RTI Act.
All of these complaints have now been deferred to a future meeting based on new information provided to the Council, to afford me Natural Justice.
 I maintain I am not guilty of any breaches of the code of conduct, and I will let you sum up why close to 70 internally generated complaints were even made at all so far, in this term of Council.
COUNCIL MEETING – JANUARY 24TH, 2023
I had lodged three “Notice of Motions” at the meeting and Council agreed on all three.
Based on the three motions put, the following will occur.
Because Council purchased the winery on Gallery Walk, for nearing $6.4 million, as a priority, planning for this land’s use for parking or disposal, will now include opportunities to relocate the Visitor Information Centre from Doherty Park to this site.
Council will introduce a Right to Information disclosure log to publish information released under RTI on its website, and all released information for this term of Council will be included on the Disclosure Log, before March of this year.
Council will now review the suitability of a Policy that allowed planning decision makers to provide draft conditions of approval to developers prior to Councillors meeting and deciding the applications. (The policy has met with much discontent in the community as it potentially can send wrong messages to developers and can make it difficult for Council or Councillors to oppose developments already pre-empted by the decision makers).
CONSULTATION
I will be opposite the Bakery in Main Street this Saturday the 4th February from 9.00 am to 12 noon for discussions with residents. No need to book, just come along and I will be pleased to take on board your comments, suggestions or give advice as required.
Derek Swanborough
Councillor. Division 1
derek.s@scenicrim.qld.gov.au
Ph 0436 351 567
This is my first column for 2023 and I wish everyone a great 2023!