Bad News: The Shills 4 Hire Council?

 

Where there’s smoke, is there fire?

Our Hills Shire Council has attracted a great deal of bad press - in the leadup to the 2021  election and through the first year of its current term.

Here is a roundup of some of the bad press our council has had in that period.  (Many of the articles are paywalled, but we have transcripts available.)

On pre-election Liberal factional manouevres …

In the leadup to the 2021 election, the state executive of the NSW Liberal party dumped the incumbent mayor and many of the incumbent Liberal councillors from their ticket and imposed their own candidates, usurping the prerogative of local branches to select candidates …

Liberal mayoral candidate, Peter Gangemi, referred to ICAC …

Also just prior to the 2021 election, the new Liberal candidate for mayor, Peter Gangemi, was referred to ICAC in connection with alleged undeclared interests in council business.  We are not aware of any public information on the outcome of these matters …

In our wrap of 2022, we recently reported on Mayor Gangemi’s extensive declarations of interest in the course of 2022:

More on factional in-fighting and allegations of corruption …

In June 2022, Ray Williams, Liberal member for Castle Hill made sensational allegations of corruption amongst Liberal members connected with property development and the selection of Liberal candidates for the council elections in 2021.  The NSW premier said that he has referred the matters to ICAC - again we are not aware of any progress or outcomes.

The ABC’s Four corners reported in July  on "How factional infighting contributed to the Liberal Party's election loss", referring to May’s federal election.  The role of Alex Hawke, member for Mitchell, was particularly examined.  It included a segment on allegations surrounding the hard right faction's wholesale replacement of the Liberal ticket for last year's Hills Shire Council election “The Dossier” beginning at 28:06.

On council’s ruthless suppression of dissent …

In June council voted to adopt a deeply repressive social media moderation policy allowing them to censor public comments that they do not like, without oversight and with no practical recourse or review.  The move received vociferous and unanimous condemnation on social media and in print and on-line media.  (Council has since taken other more egregious measures to suppress dissent that have not been publicly reported.) 

Opportunistic Gangemi, milking the flood crisis …

In July our drop-in mayor was prominent in the media, calling for the raising of the Warragamba Dam Wall while ignoring the powerful cultural, environmental and economic case against it.  Given council’s decades of denying the climate crisis, this was a clear case of cynical opportunism.  There were multiple news reports but we have chosen to include the only one we know of that had at least a nod to the case against raising the dam wall …

Meanwhile prominent local GP and advocate for climate action, Dr Kim Loo was reported in the Sunday Telegraph on July 17 advocating for the real climate action that Gangemi and our council refuses to countenance:

Toxic Council, toxic work environment …

In July the Daily Telegraph reported that our council "has been hit with allegations of a ‘toxic work environment’ and shocking workloads, as new employees are told they won’t last two weeks in the role" ...

Developers rule, wildlife suffers …

Ruthless and unscrupulous MIRVAC proceed with their destructive project in West Pennant Hills.  Mayor Gangemi professes opposition but those words are cheap when his NSW government colleagues have taken the decision out of the local council’s hands.  The SMH article quotes out-going NSW government minister and member for Baulkham Hills, David Elliott, describing Gangemi as the “most pro-development councillor in living memory”.

And when a small but important measure to protect wildlife on development sites was put to council, sure enough, mayor Gangemi and a majority of Liberal Councillors defeated it …

And the bad news continues …

And we already have a catalogue of bad press related to our council in 2023, leading up to the NSW Parliamentary inquiry.  But we’ll save those for another day or perhaps our 2023 wrap of council business.

This is a veritable mountain of bad press for one council to receive in just a little over a year.  Is there another council that attracts the level of bad press that our council does?

There clearly is smoke.  Is there fire?

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