Mr Colreavy said there was no requirement in the guidelines to have detailed building plans or a tender or expression of interest. “The suggested requirement for a tender or expression of interest seems unusual and I would be interested to learn if such a requirement has been imposed on other applications in the past. You normally go to tender after you know that funding is assured, not before. Otherwise you would be putting tenderers to great expense in preparing tenders – possibly costing them tens of thousands of dollars each – without the certainty that sufficient funds are available to pay for a project. We will most likely adopt a design and construct tender process which is common for these types of projects. Our concept design and costings were prepared by specialist engineering consultants with expertise in this area and checked by quantity surveyors. There’s nothing abnormal or unusual about that.”

Mr Colreavy said the Minister was not correct in describing the proposal as “really very early days”. “We have been working on this project now for 18 months. We intend to complete the pre-construction phase within the first quarter of 2009 and if everything goes to plan, construction will be well underway towards the end of the current financial year and completed in 2009/2010.

Council Braithwaite asked if the General Manager exceeded the $100,000 council allowed for expenditure on developing “the flawed depot plan”. Mr Colreavy said that it would have been close to $100,000 but “None of the money that has been spent to date has been wasted. We have settled the scope of upgrade works required there and we also have the basis for reviewing our fleet operations and tailoring the depot to suit a leaner fleet. Some of the money was spent on public consultation but that was an essential component of the process in reaching the point we are at today.”

Cr Braithwaite also asked if the General Manager had applied for rate variation for any of the previous councils he has worked for and Mr Colreavy said no he had not. He later told the Courier –Sun that those other Council’s “had not let their depots, which are the key platforms for the delivery of works services at every council, run down with no plans or funding earmarked for their rectification as has happened here.”

Mr Colreavy later said “Council chose to pursue the special variation as the means of paying for the upgrade because the alternative was to reduce services or other programmed improvements, most likely to roads and bridges. Conscious of the importance to the community of the items on our future works program, we believed we needed to both fix the depot and get on with the road and bridge works. To do otherwise would set important projects on the future works program back for years. The special variation needed the Minister’s approval. We always accepted that the Minister is the final arbiter on special rate increases and I am not disputing that now. In determining special variation applications, the Minister can apply whatever criteria he sees fit. Our application addressed the Guidelines issued by the Department of Local Government.

In reply to Cr Braithwaite’s question on what steps would the General Manager be taking to ensure that this Council’s forward financial planning meets the required standards to deal with matters such as the upgrade of a fixed asset Mr Colreavy agreed that the Minister was correct in referring to the lack of forward planning for a longstanding problem. He said “The problems at the Raleigh Depot should have been evident for much of the past 27 years. Occupational health and safety legislation was first introduced in 1983 and then revised in 2000. When I took over there were many areas of non compliance with the basics. Council did not have an occupational health and safety management plan and it was evident that the depot had reached its use by date with no sign of a plan for its replacement. “

Mr Colreavy said in the same interview with the ABC the Minister said he would be having discussions with Council and those discussions commenced Tuesday July 15. In the course of the discussions, a senior Departmental officer has acknowledged the priority that Council has given to the upgrade proposal stating “This has to be priority number one on your works program”.

Mr Colreavy said that “The Department of Local Government‘s Better Practice Review Report on Bellingen Shire Council…acknowledges that (under my stewardship), Council has come a long way from its former 12 month planning cycle and its lack of a number of key governance systems. We have identified a number of deficiencies and we are currently in the process of building up and putting in place systems to increase organisational capacity. This includes long term forward planning systems. However, they won’t happen overnight. The Department has recognised that the key challenge for Council at this stage will be to persist in this improvement process and to maintain the high level of commitment to change. The Department has said that we will need to appreciate the extent of the change processes and adequately prioritise Council resources. With this in mind, we have commenced a review of the works program to free up funding for the depot upgrade.

Mr Colreavy said “In the face of criticism, the current Councillors, with only one exception, have been very courageous and diligent in attending to this long standing problem – it is a credit to them that they realise their responsibility and are doing something about it. They should not be blamed for the failures of the past. They should be encouraged in their endeavours to fix them.”