Council Travel Article Justified
Phone call response to Caleb Cluff – Courier 30 September 2020 - 2.22pm
Re: Council Travel Article Justified or Junket
Social media is a marvellous tool and also a dangerous weapon when used for bad rather than good. I have previously advised that I would be registering media responses on my website to ensure fairness and transparency in reporting as it occurs.
Read on because social media also gives me the power to ask the questions and respond.
The background to Mr Cluff’s from The Ballarat Courier query was “What was the purpose of the trip to Japan”.
That was the first correction – it wasn’t a trip to Japan it was a stopover coming home from Krakow and my visit to the Waste to Energy and all Waste Interchange sites and the Conference for the Organisations of World Heritage Cities where I met the experts associated with the UNESCO bid for the Goldfields. (I could feel the drain come out of him – this is not the gotcha moment that he thought).
So after I explained that they wouldn’t let me sleep on the plane for the stopover and I needed accommodation I had arranged to meet with the Mayor of Kyoto Mr Daisaku Kadokawa, Chair of the World League of Historical Cities to discuss and progress the Goldfields UNESCO bid.
Japan is an extremely hierarchical government and the opportunity to meet one on one with Mr Kadokawa is like having afternoon tea with Don Bradman or Eddie Mabo – it just doesn’t happen. But here I was, representing Ballarat and the other 12 Local Governments involved in the bid.
Mr Cluff’s next question – there is an expense for bullet train travel. Yes I couldn’t walk from the airport to Kyoto some 450km and so the ping pong game went on and on.
In the interests of transparency, I didn’t tell Mr Cluff that the laundry costs in Krakow also included my underwear if he’d like to include that as well!
I did have a mini explosion with a ‘for gods sake’ I’ve been over and over these trips with you and every other journalist you have thrown from the Courier and provided all the detail and responses to every media query over the years.
So when challenged on why again Mr Cluff stated ‘I’m doing a forensic analysis on expenses and that Jolyon (Attwool) missed too many things and “I’ll be speaking to him” as soon as I get off the phone.
So as the deep cracks appeared in the Courier Council Expenses article and the community started to rally against the reporter and article, the Courier removed yesterday’s article from the facebook site - five minutes after my discussion with Mr Cluff.
Why? if open reporting is a basis for our fair society.
On my flight between Japan and Melbourne I received an email confirming that the World Experts Conference scheduled for Sydney 2020 would use our Goldfields (UNESCO bid) as their study piece. At no cost to the City of Ballarat or other LGA’s this confirmation included a research team spending a week in our Region scrutinising our proposal and progressing the application. As with many international issues COVID has stalled this visit.
Despite Mr Cluff claiming that the $68 million return on a UNESCO bid has never been independently verified I refer him to the Price Waterhouse Coopers report on the UNESCO bid. Please see http://bih.federation.edu.au/index.php/Victorian_goldfields_world_heritage_listing
Not a bad outcome for sponsored trip to Krakow and a $1,299.75 (as reported by the Courier) stopover with Mayor of Kyoto.
In addition, former State government party leaders John Brumby and Denise Napthine now ambassadors are advocating for the Goldfields listing with $150,000 now committed to progress the bid. Not bad value for money.
*Image from Unsplash- No time for site seeing on this stop over