On a path to reform
JOURNALISM can be a fatiguing and dispiriting game sometimes.
While some like to believe the frantic daily scribblings of a reporter can change the world, those who spend any time in the profession soon discover that more often than not it is a matter of the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The real world has a way of stonewalling reform that can be as disheartening as it is demoralising for the campaigning scribe.
However, sometimes the words printed in a newspaper actually turn a key that unlocks genuine change for the better that affects communities and rights wrongs.
The Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian’s Your Right to Know campaign, co-ordinated by political editor Matt Smith, has been one such occasion.
As a result of a forensic probe into the expense claims of Hobart City Council aldermen, the council has ticked off on more than a dozen new guidelines that will make all involved more accountable.
The council described the reforms as among “the most comprehensive aldermanic reimbursement of expenses policies” in the state. The new policy covers expense claims, professional development, childcare, overseas travel, mobile phone use, parking and the reimbursement of legal expenses.
Sometimes words printed in a newspaper actually turn a key that unlocks genuine change for the better that affects communities and rights wrongs.
Right To Information documents revealed information that led to an internal audit and report by the chartered accountants Wise Lord and Ferguson.
The report found total expenses of all aldermen between January 2012 and December 2014 amounted to at least $350,000. The Right to Know campaign prompted the council to release the details of expenditure for the first time — and, perhaps more intriguingly, it was the first occasion Hobart aldermen had seen one another’s expense bills.
While this campaign may have challenged some aldermen and seriously questioned the council’s brand, it found a close ally in new Lord Mayor Sue Hickey who is keen to re-invent the council, what it stands for and how it is perceived in the eyes of its ratepayers. The Lord Mayor has taken the lead in pursuing many of the new guidelines and her stance will give the community comfort that their ratepaying dollars were spent appropriately.
As she wisely said: “It is now time to draw a line in the sand and move forward on this issue.”
The council will be a better operation with these reforms and ratepayers will from now have more confidence in their representatives.
At a state level Premier Will Hodgman has announced an overhaul of Right to Information processes to make government departments publish all such requests online within 48 hours of the information being provided.
This will mean thousands of pages of information — including details about ministers’ expenses, health statistics, education data, government planning and departmental costs — will for the first time be available for all Tasmanians to access.
A commitment to transparency and accountability is a requirement of our elected representatives in the 21st century. In recent days we have witnessed a significant move to ensure openness and honesty is not just expected, but demanded.