THE GAMES THEY PLAY – Newsport’s quest to ensure transparency and accountability from Douglas Shire Council
SPECIAL COMMENT
At Newsport we value and realise the critical importance of independent and trusted community journalism.
In the same breath our daily charter is to engage, inspire, inform, entertain, and to champion the issues and matters important to the livelihoods and futures of those that call the Douglas Shire home.
Our job is also to hold government and more locally, Douglas Shire Council to account to ensure they deliver, properly manage and look after the best interests of local ratepayers and residents alike.
Without fear or favour the very foundation of community journalism is to cover stories that makes a difference in readers’ lives.
In more recent times, a focus of Newsport’s has been to report on the daily happenings of Douglas Shire Council a lot more closely.
When Douglas Shire Council makes a decision at a Council meeting that indirectly, or directly effects the Shire our aim has been to ensure you have received the clear reasoning as to the why.
Why is this important? Because, in an ever-changing communications landscape, Douglas Shire Council, like many others, now uses its own communication channels to promote, publicise and inform residents about the matters it wishes to disseminate into a public space.
This is perfectly normal as we live in a democracy and Council has the full right to deliver its messages in the way it sees fit.
However, dig a little deeper and one might see why Council actually does this.
It’s absolutely critical those that work within the chamber are held to account for the decisions they make that directly effect the lives of local ratepayers and residents.
As it stands, Douglas Shire Council disseminates information among others, through Mayoral minutes, social media posts, email newsletters, flyers, a liftout in a Cairns based Newspaper, Issuu, media releases and content on their website.
That’s great, but further examination reveals Council’s agenda is about trying to control the public narrative and message. It craves to be perceived in a favourable light – even on the many occasions the situation doesn’t warrant it.
It’s widely accepted that Douglas Shire Council’s ongoing response, recovery strategy and reaction to last December’s double disaster in Ex Tropical Cyclone Jasper and the Mossman flood event has proved the worst in local living memory.
Council’s response to last year’s double disaster, the ongoing water issues that have plagued the Shire, its general lack of accountability or ownership, and its horrendous communication style has shown it to be a Council that just can’t get things done.
But I digress. Council, in simple terms, only releases information it wants you to know about, not necessarily what you need to know.
Releasing its own information through its own communication channels is a strategy Council uses in an attempt to bypass public scrutiny and to avoid delivering the real transparency Douglas Shire residents so desperately crave, expect and ultimately deserve.
Consider this; if Douglas Shire Council believed in total transparency, why didn’t it publicly reveal to local ratepayers last July that since the Daintree Ferry has been under Council ownership it has cost ratepayers upwards of around $2.6M to ensure it has remained functional and operational?
Why didn’t Council release to the public that by December 31 last year according to Douglas Shire Council’s very own unaudited, confidential figures that for the 2022-23 financial year the Ferry was expected to have run at a loss of $496,737?
That’s right, $496,737.
Instead, it was Newsport that ran this exclusive story about the matter on July 26. Council’s response? – absolute crickets.
Those are the very figures Douglas Shire Council operatives didn’t and simply don’t want you to know about.
Where was the urgent and timely information on its channels about the need to stock up on water due to local water being turned off or restricted earlier this year? That’s right, most residents received text messages AFTER the water had been turned off, giving Douglas Shire residents no time to put enough drinking water aside to last them until Council got its act together and turned it back on.
Council would never admit it publicly because it’s a very embarrassing look for them but take it as given that some Council operatives high up inside the chamber absolutely hate when Newsport breaks stories that Council never intends to tell you about.
Newsport’s ability to break story after story about the happenings of the Mossman Mill continues to incense the local Mayor. This story below sent the mayor into a frenzy, with the Mayor taking a disliking to Newsport doing what it’s supposed to do – break stories and inform Douglas Shire residents of the latest news around our Shire.
Furthermore, this story below, about the local DV centre was another; Newsport understands this story left the mayor absolutely seething, because Council was unable to control the narrative of information and the timeline in which it wanted it to be released to the public.
EXCLUSIVE: State agrees to $2.2 million for running of Mossman DV Centre
In short, the mayor didn’t like his thunder being stolen as he intended to reveal this information before Newsport beat him to it.
What was Council doing just weeks ago in the middle of a major recovery mission? It curated a story about a dog rescue that it proudly boasted had supposedly went viral. Is Council paid to waste ratepayer time to post viral stories about dogs? Or it supposed to find a way to do more important things? Like I don't know, maybe fix our broken water system?
Why did acting CEO Scott Mason, who did a remarkable job in such a short period of time engage Mendi Group to get on top of the mess and devastation in the Daintree post Jasper only for his hard work and planning to be then overturned by more permanent staff members? No, that's something Council would never tell you about.
If it doesn’t get any worse, Newsport received a call from well known Daintree resident Jeremy Blockey on Monday 19/2 at 1pm, in which he relayed his complete frustration and utter dismay about a situation he was caught up in.
Mr Blockey went on to tell Newsport that he was currently parked outside of the Douglas Shire chambers in a bid to get answers from someone, anyone, about when or if Noah Range would re-open on Monday.
Noah range closed again over the past few days due to rain and rockfalls. It was very, very fair and reasonable for Mr Blockey to ask Council when the range would be re-open to one lane as its closure meant he was stuck in Mossman or Port for as many days as it would take to re-open a single lane of Noah Range.
That’s fine, but where is the TRANSPARENCY, and accessibility of Douglas Shire staffers, including Mayor Michael Kerr and CEO Rachel Brophy about this matter? The pair confirmed with Newsport they had asked, or others’ had asked on behalf of them to every single Douglas Shire worker when the range would re-open, not one Douglas Shire staffer had a single answer for them. Is that the reaction of a functioning and transparent Council?
Just days ago we sought direct answers from the Mayor and CEO about Council backtracking on its promise to deliver a splash park to Port Douglas. What was Council’s response? Just a bland, non accountable statement that no one at Council wanted to put their name to. Where is the transparency and accountability? Why are people hiding within Council walls? The story I mention is here:
On Australia Day this year, a Newsport staffer was taking photos during local celebrations when a DSC staffer told us we weren’t permitted to take photos… Council has zero legal grounds to do such a thing. What a seriously embarrassing look for Douglas Shire Council.
That’s why community journalism outlets, like Newsport, are an essential cornerstone of their local communities.
I’ll repeat, keep in mind Council only releases what it wants you to know, not what you need to know.
The ‘Do it in Douglas’ campaign is another highly questionable subject matter.
If Council truly believes in this, why then, has it purportedly turned its back on engaging Douglas Shire based tradesmen to do work in our Shire in favour for those who live and work in Cairns?
This campaign appears to be nothing more than a baseless, meaningless smokescreen.
Further to this point, I find it extremely ironic that Douglas Shire Council chooses to work directly with a Cairns based media operator - to the absolute detriment of Douglas Shire readers and ratepayers.
It’s an insult to the intelligence of Douglas Shire residents and to Newsport readers – which enjoyed more then 800,000 page views last December and this January that DSC has an ongoing financial arrangement with a Cairns based media company (run by the managing director in Mareeba) who it gets to officially promote and publicise its in house messages.
Why? Because this specific Cairns based outlet simply doesn’t hold DSC to account.
This is critical to absorb and understand.
The Cairns based media outlet doesn’t ask Douglas Shire Council questions about budget allocation, or spending, about DA’s being disapproved, nor does it dig deep about the ongoing dysfunction at Council.
It simply panders and asks no questions.
As long as the money is coming in to them why would the Cairns based media company jeopardise that by possibly asking the hard questions of Douglas Shire Council?
Next month a new Douglas Shire Mayor and set of Councillors will be elected.
It’s an overdue changing of the guard, a time for new voices and more importantly a new direction.
It’s time for the toxic nature of Douglas Shire Council to end, and for new leadership to fix a broken Shire.
Michael Warren
Editor
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