Thursday 30 July 2009

Digging a bigger hole

I had to baulk at a Victorian Council when they got rid of two amazing city workers, yet got the boot.

The Geelong Council fired two compassionate staffers when a wanker of a whistle-blower dobbed them in for filling in two pot-holes where elderly residents frequent.

Mick Van Beek and Peter Anderson were then rewarded with a steak sandwich for their kindness.

So, six shovels of Council asphalt, that was on it's way to the refuse tip, got them in a deeper hole. The whistle-blower wrote to Council's CEO (and we know how compassionate our last one was) who sacked Mick and Peter.

The Geelong Advertiser, who has on their team, the fabulous former Cairns Post investigative journalist, Kerri-Ann Hobbs, said that Council staff walked off the job on Tuesday to support the guys.

In Geelong, Councillors even face court when they fail to declare a conflict of interest. Imagine that?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Enough Rope said...

The term “Whistle-Blower” is a term that should not be bandied about lightly.

Without people being afforded the protection of the Whistle-Blowers Act we would not have such outcome as the Dr Death findings and subsequent court cases. There is a real need for such people within government departments both state and local.

I believe those in media call them ‘sources’ preferring to take the glory of a sensationalised headline with fractionally true article attached as opposed undertake an objective investigation seeing it through to its conclusion, too hard for some I believe.

Further given the current goings on within Queensland Health here in Cairns, there is need to further strengthen the legislation affording the prospective ‘Whistle-Blowers’ even greater protection.