Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to address Council regarding
GMR24/004 Mid-Point Review – Mogo Trails and Coastal Headlands
Walking Trail.
I am presenting as Co-Convenor of A Better Eurobodalla (ABE), a community
forum dedicated to having open and inclusive government in our region. ABE
expects that before governments, at any level, make decisions that will impact
their communities, they will undertake broad and meaningful consultation,
listen to and share expert advice, and proceed using a transparent decision-
making process so that the community understands who makes decisions,
when and why.
ABE has taken a sustained interest in Council’s governance and management
of major grants projects, reflected in multiple written enquiries and
presentations to Council, including a presentation in August 2023 on the
Review of the Bay Pavilions. ABE also made a submission to the NSW
Government Public Accountability Committee examining public grant
processes.
After inspecting the mid-term review, ABE offers the following observations :
1) The external review is a welcome step in providing the community with
insights regarding the current status of these two projects. It has identified
significant financial risks arising for Council and the Eurobodalla community
as both projects move into operational mode, and offers options to address or
reduce these problems.
2) The review’s suggestion for the creation of dedicated project management
skills and resources within Council is a worthwhile initiative, and echoes
similar recommendations made in the Bay Pavilions Review in August 2023.
ABE supports this recommendation
3) While the review has provided useful suggestions on how to minimise the
emerging financial and related risks arising from these 2 grant projects, it
provides no substantive insight into how Council and Eurobodalla ratepayers
came to be in our current predicament. The review exhibits a puzzling lack of
curiosity in how these 2 major financial dilemmas developed, and lacks any
comprehensive documentation regarding information sources and
stakeholders contributing to the review. In this respect, this review is
lamentably similar to the Bay Pavilions review. For those who say that past
events should be ignored as we look to the future, I offer the enduring advice :
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
4) The lack of documentation regarding the Review’s sources and
stakeholders is a critical weakness, as it makes it impossible to evaluate what
community input (if any) has gone into this review, and what degree of
community transparency has been applied in the development of these
projects. It is the lived experience of ABE and other interested community
members that it has been difficult, if not impossible at times, to get accurate
and up to date information regarding either of these projects. For example, the
reduction of the Coastal Walking Trail length from 33km to 14.5 km was never
formally announced – it just mysteriously occurred without any explanation
being provided. Given this track record, it is paradoxical that most of the
potential solutions suggested by the Review involve much greater community
involvement, in order to reduce the impacts on Council resources and staffing.
If Council is serious about enlisting greater community involvement in these
projects, it is essential that it communicates the current circumstances of each
project frankly and fully to the community.
5) The Review’s dismissal of Council’s lack of understanding of the whole of
life cost of the Mogo Adventure Trails as an “unfortunate oversight” strains the
reader’s credibility. Whole of life costing is “Project Management 101”, and is
fundamental to the development of any sort of business case. It is particularly
puzzling in the case of Mogo Adventure Trails, as the initial $3 million Growing
Local Economies grant stipulated requirements for submission of both a
business case as well as “information on how the project will be operated
and/or maintained upon completion”.
6) There is an elementary but non-trivial mathematical error concerning the
maintenance cost of Mystic Ranges on page 15 of the Review. The review
indicates the cost per kilometre as $1,400, when it should in fact be $14,220
per kilometre (i.e. an error factor of 10). This translates to a cost per metre of
$14.22, in comparison with the $1.50/metre cost initially quoted by Dirt Art, the
Mogo track designers. If the Mystic Range figure were applied to the Mogo
complex, it would generate an annual maintenance cost of $2.133 million. The
escalating estimated maintenance costs per metre are a significant risk factor
for the 155 km of Mogo trails, having gone from $1.50 (Dirt Art), $2.15 (draft
Mogo Trails Adventure Plan) to $4.00/metre in the current review.
7) The Mid-Point Review corroborates ABE’s submission to the Public
Accountability Committee that the Coastal Headland Walking Trail project was
not in a “shovel” ready” state when granted $5.25 million of BLER (Bushfire
Local Economic Recovery) grant funding in 2021, despite this being one of
the key requirements stipulated for this program. This unsatisfactory state of
affairs reflects poorly on both the grant provider and the grant applicant.
It is of great concern to ABE and many other community members that three
large Public Funding grants (totalling more than $84 million) have become
current or imminent ongoing financial and/or resources black holes for Council
and its ratepayers. The forces that facilitated these financially “poison pill”
grants are still with us, and the community needs to be vigilant to ensure that
history does not repeat itself. The recommendations outlined in the Mid-Point review, if fully and rigorously implemented, can make a significant contribution
to avoiding such errors in the future.
The long term negative financial implications from the Mogo Adventure Trails
and Coastal Headlands Walking Trail projects, on top of the already disclosed
financial burden arising from the Bay Pavilions Aquatic Centre, underscore
the critical need to pursue the good governance and transparency objectives
that ABE has consistently been putting forward to Council for over 3 years.
Thank you for your attention.
Dr Brett Stevenson
Co-Convenor
A Better Eurobodalla
21/5/2024
A Better Eurobodalla 