Community & Business
21 November, 2024
Payouts, perceptions and politics
Ex-CEO Burges and Mayor Hamilton disagree
The sparks continue to fly over the sudden departure of former Southern Downs Council CEO Dave Burges, with Shire mayor Melissa Hamilton revealing that council voted not to increase the severance package from the standard put in place.
It’s a story that has been told before in the Southern Downs - with more than one CEO shown the door, with a package, by mayors past, and it’s a story that’s been repeated post-election across the state. By May this year, eight CEOs across the state had been shown the door, including Sunshine Coast, Balonne Shire, Redland City Council, North Burnett, Bundaberg, Cairns, Central Highlands, and Brisbane City. Where there haven’t been resignations, there have been troubles like the Gold Coast City Council tensions between their governance committee chair Brooke Patterson and CEO Tim Baker.
Separating a CEO from their contract and the council they are serving is no light matter and not easily done. Mayor Melissa Hamilton is keen to get this point across to the residents.
“We took it really seriously, we are not corrupt,” she told The Town & Country Journal in regard to the termination of CEO Dave Burges’ contract and the ensuing public relations uproar on all sides.
If typical of other CEO’s contracts, Mr Burges’ included termination provisions that could be triggered through his resignation, mutual agreement on resignation, or summary dismissal. There are other triggers but these are the pertinent ones. Terminating an ongoing contract involves paying out the notice period under the contract. In some cases, the severance package is increased in cases where the expulsion is not by mutual agreement, but in the Southern Downs case, the Journal understands, the mayor—with the backing of the majority of councillors—refused to pay Mr Burges the extra sums he demanded.
Termination provisions are highly regulated since no council wants to engage in an unfair dismissal action. Every area is touched on by a cadre of legal boundaries including the Human Rights Act, the Information Privacy Act, the Local Government Act, Local Government Regulation 2012 and Work Health and Safety Act 2011.
The core of the issue is nuanced. Did the CEO enter the council into financial agreements of some sort with which he had a conflict of interest? Mr Burges says absolutely not. The mayor disagrees.
“I do not agree with Mr Burges’s statements in relation to failure to declare conflicts of interest, and stand by my prior statements,” Mayor Hamilton wrote to the paper.
However, the January 2023 Crime and Corruption Commission advised council that while procedures relating to perceived conflict of interest needed to be reviewed, there was no finding of dishonesty, recklessness or improper purpose against the CEO.
In other words, the former CEO did nothing warranting further investigation by the CCC; yet inadequate policy and a perception of conflict are at play. The outcome of the CCC findings were not brought to the attention of all former councillors sources close to the matter told the paper. Whether they should have been or not is debatable.
Referring to a different matter south of the border, Councillor Peter Murphy of Tenterfield recently made a comment that fits situations such as this every day of the week, saying, “In politics, perception is everything.”
