An anonymous email taking aim at Greater Dandenong Council’s recruitment and leadership has sparked calls for an external independent investigation.
The missive sent to councillors from an encrypted email address claims to be on behalf of “we, the staff“ and makes allegations about council’s internal culture, its “chaotic restructures” and repeated use of external consultants.
Allegations include favouritism, staff excluded from key decision-making, undermining staff morale, internal capability ignored while external consultants are excessively used, a divided leadership, and unfair salary banding where some managers with less qualifications or experience are paid more than better qualified colleagues.
Greater Dandenong CEO, Jacqui Weatherill, has refused to comment on the email, saying the council doesn’t communicate “with or about our staff via the media.”
“The residents of our city benefit from officers’ hard work every day and we couldn’t be prouder of their efforts.
“We promote a culture of open feedback and take it seriously.
“Council staff can raise any issues with their manager, human resources advisers, their union or through our structured staff consultations and regular surveys.”
A recent ex-councillor, Tim Dark, says given his experiences, the allegations “more than likely have some legitimacy in them”.
“There were a lot of conversations had between staff who approached me, raising queries and concerns regarding employment with the organisation.
“Those matters sat outside my purview as a councillor, so I didn’t have the ability to deal with that per se, but I did refer the matters to be addressed and for staff to raise them internally with the managers.”
He says if the anonymous email was sent by a council staff member or a group of staff, an external independent investigation is necessary to uncover the allegations and get to the truth.
However, Mr Dark stresses the independent body shouldn’t be selected by Ms Weatherill.
“You couldn’t do an internal investigation because that would become a witch-hunt of internal staff against internal staff.”
He said the investigation needs to be undertaken by an organisation which has no connections to the executive team within City of Greater Dandenong Council.
While council operations, leadership and employment is overseen by the CEO, the councillors have a duty of care to ensure staff work in a safe environment under the Local Government Act.
Councillor Rhonda Garad expressed her grave concerns while also calling for an external independent investigation.
“It would be difficult to understand why anyone would push back on an assessment.
“It’s in the best interest of anyone to get to the truth and if these allegations aren’t found to be true, than that’s good for everyone to know.
“If some or all is true than that needs to be acted on quickly.
“We need to act quickly because if we’re given indications there’s any form of unfair bullying or harassment processes, we have a duty of care to act quickly to ensure our staff is working in a safe environment.”
On the other hand, councillor Sean O’Reilly says he’s not concerned “at this stage” as “anyone can allege anything about anyone”.
“I’m not going to publicly comment on allegations.
“We haven’t had full discussions. As councillors we need to make decisions diligently particularly due to the nature of allegations, noting the allegations have no evidence attached,” he said.
“Any discussions expected to happen would be internal.“
Councillor Phillip Danh declined to comment on the option of an external independent assessment.
Mayor Jim Memeti and councillors Lana Formoso, Bob Milkovic, Melinda Yim and Alice Phuong Le were also contacted for comment.
