Local Council Senior Right to Information Officers Had Knowledge of AgencyMisrepresentations to NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal, 17.02.2022
In an earlier media release from this source, Port Stephens Council was identified as having spent in excess of $99,000.00 of public monies in legal fees, defending an application for administrative review in the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal (NCAT). The application concerned the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009, GIPA Act, and the documents the subject of the request were classified as open access information mandated for release.
Despite the Council’s legal obligations to make the documents publicly available, Council had not done so at any time, disclosing they had remained secured in the Council vault and inaccessible. The open access documents were pecuniary interest disclosures of Council staff and Councilors, and the Council secondary employment register which held, in particular, information concerning Council Planners who were operating their own town planning consultancies in parallel to their Council roles. Both of these records are managed by Council’s Governance Manager Tony Wickham.
The defence of Port Stephens Council was founded on privacy and personal information protection principles, pleaded by Level 22 Sydney’s barristers Brenda Tronson and Mathew Cobb-Clark.
The approach taken by Tronson and Cobb-Clark is noted to completely contradict the expert training given to Port Stephens Council staff on several occasions by the NSW Crown Solicitor’s Officer Kiri Mattes, and further contradicts Council’s in-house training paraphernalia.
Council’s Senior Right to Information Officer Holly Jamadar has made public her hand-written notes made during Ms Mattes’ training in August 2017, which read QUOTE “GIPA trumps PIPA and HPIPA…….." UNQUOTE.
Ms Jamadar was incorrectly referring to the Privacy & Personal Information Protection (PIPPA) Act 1998, and the Health Records & Information Privacy (HRIPA) Act 2002, noting that the GIPA Act 2009 has full seniority when a request for information is made under the GIPA Act.
This acknowledgement by Ms Jamadar aligns with Council’s in-housing training tools, which state QUOTE “Nor PIPPA or HRIPA does not affect the operation of the GIPA Act” UNQUOTE. Council’s in-house training is provided by its Governance Manager Tony Wickham.
In the lead up to the NCAT proceedings concerning the open access pecuniary interest disclosures and the secondary employment register, the NSW Information & Privacy Commissioner (IPC) determined that Council should release all of the open access information contained within the records however Council refused the Commissioner’s recommendations.
Commenting on this latest disclosure by Port Stephens Council, NSW Freedom of Information Advocate Telina Webb stated “Port Stephens Council recently promoted itself as a Program Champion for the IPC’s “2021 Right to Know Week”, a campaign promoting the public’s rights to access government information. It’s just propaganda. This agency has no regard for the recommendations of the IPC, it makes its own rules; policy, procedure, and legislation are completely irrelevant.”
Ms Jamadar provided a sworn Affidavit towards the NCAT proceedings, however she neglected to disclose to the NCAT her knowledge and training relating to the accepted hierarchy of the GIPA and PIPPA Acts, knowledge which made clear she was aware Tronson and Cobb-Clark were misrepresenting Council’s legal obligations and the public’s rights, and more importantly Council’s knowledge of those misrepresentations. Written and verbal submissions from Council’s legal duo asserted that the GIPA Act 2009 did not have ultimate seniority over the PIPPA Act 1998, which was false. Those submissions are expected to have been vetted by Port Stephens Council.
The NCAT later determined the applicant Mr McEwan to be provided with a substantial amount of the withheld documents, highlighting the nature of the requested information and Council’s mandated obligations to make such information available to the public.
At completion of the aforementioned proceedings, a further request for information by Mr McEwan to Port Stephens Council resulted in Council’s confirmation that the NCAT proceedings cost the tax-payer in excess of $99,000.00 for the team of Tronson and Cobb-Clark, as well as Lindsay Taylor Lawyers the briefing solicitors.
The NCAT is unable to quantify its costs for this particular matter, but it is reasonable to expect those costs would meet Council’s expenditure at minimum, seeing the public unnecessarily footing the overall bill for as much as $200,000.00.
Telina Webb added, “Clearly this was a case of false representation to the NCAT on the part of this Council by two of its senior officers, compounded by its legal representatives. There is a culture existing within the organisation that it is quite acceptable to misrepresent the legislation, that it is quite acceptable to make misrepresentations to the judiciary, and that it is certainly quite acceptable to waste huge amounts of public money.
The IPC as the regulator of these Acts, needs to do much more in order to bring agency personnel to account and restore the public’s confidence in the current legislation, particularly with documents showing agencies know precisely what is required but refuse to comply.”
The public is reminded it was Port Stephens Council’s Governance Manager Tony Wickham who made false statements to the IPC claiming apprehended violence orders had been issued against certain members of the public, statements designed to influence an Investigating Officer of the IPC into drawing an untrue opinion about members of the public who had requested open access information mandated for release. Mr Wickham has since provided that letter to several government agencies as well as the judiciary for the same purpose.
In November 2020 Port Stephens Council Councilor Giacomo Arnold raised the issue of Council’s Access to Information Policy, commenting with words to the effect “the policy looks good in theory but doesn’t explain why so many reviews are being sought with NCAT”.
Ms Webb contends this is fundamentally what the problem is with Port Stephens Council, that is the policies and procedures have all been written, as has the legislation, yet there are still so many reviews being sought with NCAT, because Council chooses not to abide by them.
Tony Wickham: 0408 497 649
Holly Jamadar: 0467 183 514
Brenda Tronson: (02) 9151 2212
Matthew Cobb-Clark: (02) 9151 2239
Kiri Mattes: (02) 9224 5000
Despite the Council’s legal obligations to make the documents publicly available, Council had not done so at any time, disclosing they had remained secured in the Council vault and inaccessible. The open access documents were pecuniary interest disclosures of Council staff and Councilors, and the Council secondary employment register which held, in particular, information concerning Council Planners who were operating their own town planning consultancies in parallel to their Council roles. Both of these records are managed by Council’s Governance Manager Tony Wickham.
The defence of Port Stephens Council was founded on privacy and personal information protection principles, pleaded by Level 22 Sydney’s barristers Brenda Tronson and Mathew Cobb-Clark.
The approach taken by Tronson and Cobb-Clark is noted to completely contradict the expert training given to Port Stephens Council staff on several occasions by the NSW Crown Solicitor’s Officer Kiri Mattes, and further contradicts Council’s in-house training paraphernalia.
Council’s Senior Right to Information Officer Holly Jamadar has made public her hand-written notes made during Ms Mattes’ training in August 2017, which read QUOTE “GIPA trumps PIPA and HPIPA…….." UNQUOTE.
Ms Jamadar was incorrectly referring to the Privacy & Personal Information Protection (PIPPA) Act 1998, and the Health Records & Information Privacy (HRIPA) Act 2002, noting that the GIPA Act 2009 has full seniority when a request for information is made under the GIPA Act.
This acknowledgement by Ms Jamadar aligns with Council’s in-housing training tools, which state QUOTE “Nor PIPPA or HRIPA does not affect the operation of the GIPA Act” UNQUOTE. Council’s in-house training is provided by its Governance Manager Tony Wickham.
In the lead up to the NCAT proceedings concerning the open access pecuniary interest disclosures and the secondary employment register, the NSW Information & Privacy Commissioner (IPC) determined that Council should release all of the open access information contained within the records however Council refused the Commissioner’s recommendations.
Commenting on this latest disclosure by Port Stephens Council, NSW Freedom of Information Advocate Telina Webb stated “Port Stephens Council recently promoted itself as a Program Champion for the IPC’s “2021 Right to Know Week”, a campaign promoting the public’s rights to access government information. It’s just propaganda. This agency has no regard for the recommendations of the IPC, it makes its own rules; policy, procedure, and legislation are completely irrelevant.”
Ms Jamadar provided a sworn Affidavit towards the NCAT proceedings, however she neglected to disclose to the NCAT her knowledge and training relating to the accepted hierarchy of the GIPA and PIPPA Acts, knowledge which made clear she was aware Tronson and Cobb-Clark were misrepresenting Council’s legal obligations and the public’s rights, and more importantly Council’s knowledge of those misrepresentations. Written and verbal submissions from Council’s legal duo asserted that the GIPA Act 2009 did not have ultimate seniority over the PIPPA Act 1998, which was false. Those submissions are expected to have been vetted by Port Stephens Council.
The NCAT later determined the applicant Mr McEwan to be provided with a substantial amount of the withheld documents, highlighting the nature of the requested information and Council’s mandated obligations to make such information available to the public.
At completion of the aforementioned proceedings, a further request for information by Mr McEwan to Port Stephens Council resulted in Council’s confirmation that the NCAT proceedings cost the tax-payer in excess of $99,000.00 for the team of Tronson and Cobb-Clark, as well as Lindsay Taylor Lawyers the briefing solicitors.
The NCAT is unable to quantify its costs for this particular matter, but it is reasonable to expect those costs would meet Council’s expenditure at minimum, seeing the public unnecessarily footing the overall bill for as much as $200,000.00.
Telina Webb added, “Clearly this was a case of false representation to the NCAT on the part of this Council by two of its senior officers, compounded by its legal representatives. There is a culture existing within the organisation that it is quite acceptable to misrepresent the legislation, that it is quite acceptable to make misrepresentations to the judiciary, and that it is certainly quite acceptable to waste huge amounts of public money.
The IPC as the regulator of these Acts, needs to do much more in order to bring agency personnel to account and restore the public’s confidence in the current legislation, particularly with documents showing agencies know precisely what is required but refuse to comply.”
The public is reminded it was Port Stephens Council’s Governance Manager Tony Wickham who made false statements to the IPC claiming apprehended violence orders had been issued against certain members of the public, statements designed to influence an Investigating Officer of the IPC into drawing an untrue opinion about members of the public who had requested open access information mandated for release. Mr Wickham has since provided that letter to several government agencies as well as the judiciary for the same purpose.
In November 2020 Port Stephens Council Councilor Giacomo Arnold raised the issue of Council’s Access to Information Policy, commenting with words to the effect “the policy looks good in theory but doesn’t explain why so many reviews are being sought with NCAT”.
Ms Webb contends this is fundamentally what the problem is with Port Stephens Council, that is the policies and procedures have all been written, as has the legislation, yet there are still so many reviews being sought with NCAT, because Council chooses not to abide by them.
Tony Wickham: 0408 497 649
Holly Jamadar: 0467 183 514
Brenda Tronson: (02) 9151 2212
Matthew Cobb-Clark: (02) 9151 2239
Kiri Mattes: (02) 9224 5000