Over the past several weeks we have seen the Minister for Local Government issue Kiama Council with a Draft Improvement Notice. That notice from the Minister was to give the Council another chance to set out how it intended to improve its financial reporting, how it was going to resolve their debt situation and to produce an “options” report on Blue Haven.
Your Council chose to ignore the Minister’s requests and decided that they would seek to sell off parts of Blue Haven Aged Care (Bonaira)
As you would expect, your Councils refusal to just do the simple task of following what the Minister wanted them to do has resulted in another Improvement
Order being issued, this time with much stronger requirements and the appointment of an adviser, should Council fail to comply with this Order or again ignore the Minister, then it is likely that Council would be placed into Administration.
We have all heard one of the Councillors come out in the media suggesting that the value of Bonaira is far less than expected, and may not even cover the loan, we have also heard in the media, that comments have been made that this should not be unexpected given the negative commentary coming out from Council.
The Union is imploring the Council to just get on with your responsibilities to the Residents and Community and produce a report so that everyone can see some fair and unbiased reports to comment on.
The United Services Union remains committed to the campaign to have Blue Haven Aged Care Services remain under the management of Council.
We are expecting to be able to release an interim report that the Union commissioned through the University of Wollongong towards the end of this month, this report will hopefully demonstrate the viability of these Services to Council and the Community.
The Union will be seeking meetings with the Ministers Adviser as soon as possible to ensure that the Advisor is aware of the Unions position of saving Blue Haven.
We will continue to provide updates for our members and the residents of Blue Haven
We appreciate your support, our email address if you wish to contact us is avann@usu.org.au or roppitz@usu.org.au
