'A Redcliffe takeover': Insiders slam 'toxic' Moreton Bay council culture

Five former senior staff with widely differing roles and backgrounds have separately described to Brisbane Times how a small group of executives allegedly abused HR processes to threaten and ultimately get rid of dissenting staff.

They alleged these actions were designed to favour managers and councillors inherited from the former Redcliffe City Council.

Moreton Bay Regional Council was created in 2008 from the amalgamation of the Redcliffe, Pine Rivers and Caboolture councils. There have long been claims that the merger led to an effective “takeover” by Redcliffe, the smallest of the three councils.

Among the whistleblowers’ claims are that executives sought forensic reports on the history of procurement and other financial decisions made by “troublesome” staff members, many of them highly qualified and respected, in order to discredit them or find grounds to terminate their contracts.

One former staffer described having been asked to provide details of colleagues’ procurement activities, only to realise later that the material had been used to oust the people in question because they had been seen by management as troublemakers.

“Managers are allowed to ask for information obviously,” the former staffer said.

“But it would be very much along the track that you would realise that they’re doing it to fulfil an outcome which is to bully (staff) or get them out of the organisation because they might be challenging something.

“It was a way to trawl through everything … to bully (staff) out of the organisation.

“If someone questioned or challenged why something was happening the way it was, which is one of the core functions of a public servant - to maintain integrity - they would be driven, normally by an HR process, out of the organisation.

“HR would get in contact with procurement, they would get in touch with finance, and they would trawl everything that person has done, until they had enough of something, whether it was real or perceived, to start bullying that person out of the organisation.”

Another whistleblower, a former senior executive at the council, said there had been “a bit of a pattern ... when people raised questions about how things were being done or the probity of things, with employees who had been promoted suddenly being the subject of complaints, show-cause notices, and being shunted out the door”.

None of the former managers was willing to be identified as all still worked in the local government sector and said they feared reprisals.

Two said executives at Moreton Bay had told them they would “have trouble finding other work” after they questioned management decisions relating to council contracts worth millions of dollars relating to waste and promotional activities, respectively.

Former Moreton Bay councillors have told Brisbane Times the amalgamated council had since 2008 purged staff from the former Caboolture and Pine Rivers shires while promoting staff from the former Redcliffe council.

In the years immediately following the merger, staff and councillors quipped that the council’s new initials stood for “Much Bigger Redcliffe Council”. Staff from the Pine Rivers shire who lost their jobs were said to have been “Pine-O-Cleened”.

One of the former councillors said there had been 39 managers taken on from Caboolture shire at amalgamation, of whom only one still worked at the council.

The former senior executive agreed: “If you look at the structure of the council as it currently exists you’ll find that about a majority, if not all, of the staff of the old Pine Rivers council are no longer there - a fair percentage of the staff from the old Caboolture council are not there,” the person said.

The problems at Moreton Bay Regional Council described by the whistleblowers echoed those found by the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission at Ipswich City Council.

The CCC last year reported it had found an “unhealthy culture and unsound practices” at Ipswich and warned it had contributed to unacceptable corruption risks at the organisation.

“Every council must ensure that they understand their obligations to ensure transparent processes, sustainable management of assets and infrastructure, and decision making in the public interest,” CCC chairman Alan MacSporran wrote in his report.

“Beyond that, councillors and employees must also be prepared to challenge and report any attitudes or behaviours that threaten to undermine those obligations.”

Fifteen people linked to Ipswich council have been charged with criminal offences. Four, including former chief executive Carl Wulff, pleaded guilty and were convicted in December and sentenced on Friday.

Wulff, 66, was sentenced to 4½ years' imprisonment and his wife, Sharon Oxenbridge, was sentenced to three years, to be suspended after nine months.

Businessmen Wayne Myers, 64, and Claude Walker, 61, also received jail sentences for paying bribes to a company set up by Wulff and Oxenbridge.

The CCC is also also investigating a number of corruption allegations at Moreton Bay Regional Council.

One focus is the council’s dealings with an events company, Moreton Bay Region Industry and Tourism, which is run by a financial backer of mayor Allan Sutherland and was awarded a council contract worth more than $20 million without a tender.

Whistleblowers have alleged the council helped local businessman Shane Newcombe win the contract by providing him with confidential council financial documents and secretly briefing him on how to persuade councillors to vote for the deal.

Documents obtained by Brisbane Times show Mr Newcombe was allowed to draft the terms and conditions of the contract.

Former council staffers have claimed they were overruled when they complained about the contract, the council’s largest of any kind, being awarded without a procurement process.

Moreton Bay Regional Council did not respond to questions.