Wulff ‘kick’ out of bounds

By Shaun Inguanzo
VICTORIA’S peak local government body has described comments by outgoing Greater Dandenong CEO Carl Wulff as disloyal and irrational following his public criticism of councillors last week.
Last Wednesday evening Mr Wulff announced his resignation from the City of Greater Dandenong after accepting a job as CEO at Ipswich City Council in Queensland.
He said the move was for a lifestyle change, and a chance to pursue career goals he deemed unachievable at Greater Dandenong.
But Mr Wulff said the move was reinforced earlier this year when councillors voted against outsourcing council services to a private company.
He also accused councillors of clinging to the past by retaining council offices in Springvale and Dandenong.
“I don’t have any great confidence that (a unified office complex) will materialise,” he said.
“The decision councillors have to make will be too difficult for them to realise something for the future.
“A number of councillors are locked into holding on to relics of the past, and are not able to get visions of what could be in the future.”
He said an internal information leak, including the city’s new logo and slogan to Star three weeks prior to the official launch, was another motivation for moving.
Mr Wulff said Victorian local government’s part-time councillor system was a “burden” for those in Greater Dandenong.
“They are asked to make very significant decisions but they are only doing a part-time job,” he said.
“At least at Ipswich (where councillors are full-time) I can work with councillors on complex issues where I have access to them all day every day to get them understanding the concepts and issues.”
But Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) president Geoff Lake said Mr Wulff’s public criticisms were a “sideways kick” to Greater Dandenong councillors.
“I think it is disloyal. His obligation to councillors is that he has got three months to fulfil (before leaving), and it means he should be very careful and restrained in reflecting on his time.
“By all means talk up the career advantages, but save the criticisms of your current place to be expressed in private to councillors.”
Cr Lake said part-time councillors were just as capable as their full-time counterparts in Ipswich of making important decisions facing the community.
“I struggle to understand the rationale of what Carl is saying, given councillors are compared to directors of a company,” he said.
“Directors of a company tend to be more part-time and less engaged in their day-to-day duties in a typical company than Victorian councillors would be.
“However, this is still looked upon as being the best practice (for decision making) in the corporate world.”