THE UNDERMINING OF ROBERT DOMM
Robert Domm, the CEO of the
Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, resembles your archetypal union organiser. He left home
at fourteen but dragged himself back to education and through university. I discovered him in 2000
when I was lord mayor and he applied for a job as my chief of staff.
He had worked in the trade union movement for about eleven
years—most recently in the airline industry—and had achieved impressive
things. As well, he had managed to obtain three university degrees
and a postgraduate diploma, and to achieve admission as a lawyer
before he came to my office.
He got the job and was an instant success.
When the general manager of the City of Sydney left the
organisation at short notice in July 2001, Robert Domm was appointed deputy general manager, in
an acting role, until a new general manager could be found and
appointed. After an exhaustive search for a new general manager had yielded
an unimpressive list of second-raters, my colleagues and I
decided to appoint Domm. The council was not unanimous, but the two
opposing Liberal councillors soon became impressed with his
performance and by the time I left the City of Sydney in April 2003 he had
unanimous support.
Domm was honest, competent and very outcome focused. He had enormous integrity.
Because of his union background he knew industrial law and was
ideal to clean out the various rorts certain council staff were involved
in. He discovered and stopped a number of them in quick
succession. The unions, particularly the Municipal Employees Union (MEU—now
called the United Services Union or
USU) had found their match and set about undermining him. With my support—and
council’s—he was safe, Despite the unions’ campaign,
industrial action was never taken.
But some people in the union movement and the ALP have
long memories and it was only a matter of time before
they would get square. The demonisation of Robert Domm by the MEU extended to
South Sydney Council and its left Labor mayor, Tony Pooley, who was unhappy
that the City of Sydney had proposed to take over his council’s areas and part of Leichhardt’s.
In February 2004 the City
of Sydney and South Sydney councils were
formally dismissed in order to be reconstituted as the City of Sydney with new boundaries. Interim administrators were
appointed comprising the Lord Mayor of
Sydney (Lucy Turnbull), the Mayor of South Sydney (Tony Pooley)
and Gary Payne, then the director-general of the Department of Local
Government. They served for a matter of
weeks until the new council under independent lord mayor Clover Moore was elected in late March 2004 and
took office the following month.
Pooley was elected as the of three Labor councillors of the new city council and served until the
election of September 2008. He showed
his dislike of Domm during this period, publicly attacking him during
administrators’ meetings.
Domm very deftly merged the two council administrations
and made significant savings. But after the first six months of Clover Moore’s administration, he and his senior staff were
exhausted by the political dysfunction
and administrative interference of the mayor and council. They felt that Moore needed courtiers rather than professional officers and Domm could no longer abide
how his position was undermined. Pooley continued to
attack Domm at council meetings. Domm
resigned and the City of Sydney lost one of
its best reformers. (Domm’s replacement, Peter Seamer, an experienced administrator from Melbourne, similarly tired
of the mayoral court and left only fourteen months after being appointed on
a five-year contract.)
In October 2004, Carr had asked me to take on
responsibility for Redfern and Waterloo,
including the creation of the Redfern-Waterloo Authority (RWA). I subsequently
approached Domm to take over the role of CEO for the new Authority,
a job he was more than qualified for. Domm
had impressed the then director-general of the Premier’s department, Col Gellatly, during his time as general manager of the City of Sydney.
The Redfern-Waterloo Authority had no money, being
another example of cosmetic politics, but we had to make
it work—and we did, largely due to the
efforts of Robert Domm. Two major building projects were started—the buildings for the National Information and Communications Technology Australia and
Channel 7, both at the Australia
Technology Park at Alexandria. All together some 2500 jobs were brought permanently to Redfern.The RWA
facilitated the creation of the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence
on the site of the old Redfern Public School and turned the old courthouse and police station into a community health centre, funded
by the sale of a disused hospital
site. Hundreds of Aboriginal workers got construction jobs, and a
hospitality-training centre was opened for Indigenous kids, alongside the development of the Eveleigh Market, another RWA project. The RWA also adopted new land-use
plans for the area, leading to the rezoning of
thirty-five hectares of land to promote investment and
growth.
In July 2008, Domm also
commenced work as CEO of Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, replacing Robert
Lang, who had left to become general manager
of Parramatta Council. He had been there
for barely two months when Keneally was made Minister for Planning, with Tony
Pooley as her chief of staff.
Keneally and Pooley, each
for different reasons, were prejudiced against Domm. Pooley’s, of course, was
historical; Keneally, on the other hand, had no reason
to dislike Domm, other than that he was believed to be `Sartor’s man’ and Keneally was strategically building bridges with Clover Moore, from whom Domm had parted
company. Pooley and Keneally set about removing Robert
Domm.
In December 2008, Collins met with Domm and suggested
that he should leave the organisation, claiming that ‘everyone wants you out’. Collins was a hands-on sort of person who
had been blurring the boundary
between his role as non-executive chair of the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority and the Authority’s executive, excessively involving himself in administrative
matters. Domm stood up to him and told him that he should not act as an
executive chair when it was not
provided for under the Authority’s legislation. Collins would, for example, bypass Domm and go to
regular meetings with Keneally, something that was clearly the role of the CEO. As minister. I would never meet with the chair of a
statutory corporation without inviting its CEO except under the most unusual circumstances. No such circumstances existed here. Whether at the
behest of Keneally or for
Collins’s own reasons, Domm was simply not invited. Collins reacted angrily to the rebuke but took the matter no further in a
formal way.
This didn’t stop the campaign to remove Domm.
The underwhelming Roy Wakelin
King, who had worked with Keneally on World Youth Day in 2008, was appointed the new CEO of the Redfern–Waterloo Authority, commencing
in February 2009. At Keneally’s direction he set about investigating Robert
Domm.
Wakelin King, an ex-military man, had been in
charge of World Youth
Day with Keneally as his responsible minister. Even though he was CEO of World Youth Day he had distinguished
himself by being asked to
leave the police command centre at Surry Hills during the event. Despite this, he had obviously convinced
Keneally of his value because in late 2010 he was appointed CEO of the hastily formed. Sydney Metropolitan Development Authority.
Wakelin King called in the State Internal Audit Bureau (IAB), which left no stone unturned in reviewing, Domm’s work while he had
been CEO of the RWA. The IAB completed its report in May 2009 having found no evidence of misconduct, yet
Donna was kept swinging in the
breeze for months.The day before Keneally appeared at budget estimates in September 2009, Domm was
told by Pooley that he would not be
required. CFOs (sic) normally attend estimates hearings.
During questioning, Greens MLC Sylvia Hale
raised anonymous allegations against Domxn
that had been leaked to her relating to two
staff appointments—one at the RWA and one at the Australian Technology Park. Domm was alleged to have engaged
in ‘political nepotism’ by engaging two ex-council managers to temporarily
assist him when he held the two simultaneous CEO positions—of the RWA and SHFA—at the government’s request.
Keneally responded that the allegations were serious, that they had been
referred to the Independent Commission
Against Corruption (ICAC), and that they were the subject of an investigation—even though the IAB had cleared Domm of misconduct in these matters
months earlier.
Robert Domm was never told
of any such ICAC investigation by the ICAC or anyone else. Indeed, no evidence has emerged of any ICAC investigation into Domm.
Such undermining had its
desired effect. Domm left SHFA in March 2010, having tendered his notice of resignation soon after Kelly became Planning minister the previous December.
There has never been a finding of misconduct against him and he has never
received any contact from ICAC.
Another gatekeeper was gone.
Kelly now set about giving
his mate Warwick Watkins total control of the Authority in addition to his role as CEO
of the Land and Property
Management Authority (LPMA). The independent directors of the SHFA board were
removed.
In the year or so that followed, the Authority
muddled along. Some commercial sites were
sold, staff was sent off to the LPMA, and
Tripodi’s agenda of eliminating the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority was being realised through the political
equivalent of Chinese water torture.
Also see: Sartor: Keneally discussed plan for North Eveleigh with Sydney Uni
Source: The Fog on the Hill – How NSW Labor Lost its Way by Frank Sartor Melbourne University Press 2011 pp133-137
Note: This extract has been made using optical character recognition and may contain some errors. It is provided for community comment and debate. Please refer to the original book to ensure correct citation – REDWatch