General News
4 February, 2025
Cardew vows to expose council failings
A TABLELANDS councillor has vowed to publicly expose the inefficiencies of the organisation, saying it is the only way to force change and drive better outcomes for the community.
Cr Kevin Cardew said he even considered resigning over what he says has been a failure of Tablelands Regional Council to drive efficiencies and improve its overall performance to ensure better value for every ratepayer dollar.
In a statement to the recent meeting, Cr Cardew did not mix his words about why he had become a councillor and how important it was for change to occur, and accused Mayor Rod Marti of “chastising” councillors if they tried to intervene to get accountability from officers.
“I have been a councillor now for five years and an employee of local government for over 45 years,” he said.
“One of the main reasons for putting my hand up to become a councillor was to try to improve on the inefficiencies within council.
“Clearly I have not achieved this – the inefficiencies and unsatisfactory performance, budget overruns and disregard for customer satisfaction in some areas of council is, in my view, the worst I have seen in all my years in local government.
“I’m tired of sitting back and listening to our mayor justifying this unsatisfactory performance and chastising councillors when we try to make changes to improve this, quoting ‘these issues are operational matters and we, as councillors, cannot get involved.
“Well, if we can’t get involved to improve the way the organisation performs, who can?
“As councillors, we are responsible for the budget and are the caretakers of our ratepayer funds to ensure we get the best value for money right across the organisation and, at the moment, it is my view this is not happening.
“In recent times, there have been multiple occasions where unsatisfactory performance, budget overruns, etc, have occurred and, for me, enough is enough.
“I am no longer going to sit back behind closed doors watching this unsatisfactory trend continue.
“From this day forth, I will publicly hold this organisation and senior staff accountable. I will expose unsatisfactory performance in open public council meetings without prejudice and within the parameters of councillors’ code of conduct.”
Cr Cardew said council had good staff who wanted to serve their community well but were being “held back by bureaucracy and poor performance of others”.
“I acknowledge this statement will not be received well by some, especially if they are the one under-performing. However, my message is clear – if you don’t like it, shape up or ship out,” he said.
“It is certainly not my intention to bring this council into disrepute, however, I will do whatever is necessary to change the culture of the organisation by whatever means available to me.
“And if it means bringing open and transparent questioning on the way council performs operationally and bringing inefficiencies to the public arena, then so be it.
“Prior to writing this statement, I had considered resigning from council, but that would be the easy way out and allowing the status quo to continue.”
But he said he had hoped that things may change within the organisation with new chief executive officer Dr Nikola Stepanov due to start work this month.
“We are about to get a new CEO and I’m hoping that with a fresh look at how council operates, change for the better will come in the future,” he said.
Later in the meeting, true to his word, Cr Cardew exposed the fact that a general manager had emailed him to advise that a drainage issue that he had reported had been completed.
But when he went to inspect the works, he found the job had not been done – and it wasn’t the only example.
“What’s going on? As councillors, I am so frustrated, we are getting misinformation all the time. I’m lost as to what we should be doing to improve this,” Cr Cardew said.
Infrastructure Services general manager Mark Vis said the email sent to Cr Cardew had been based on information he got from staff.
“Obviously that information was incorrect,” he said. “Maybe I should have done more to check if that was valid. I’m not purposely misleading council, that’s the best information I had at the time.”
