JUNE – JULY 2024 | EDITION 50 | COAST’S TRUSTED LOCAL NEWS | WWW.CENTRALCOASTSUN.AU
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Council administrator talks frankly about what went wrong Central Coast Council administrator Rik Hart speaking with potential candidates in the September 14 local government elections on the roles they are expected to undertake if elected.
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IXING councils that went off the rails is one of Rik Hart’s expertise as a public servant. But nothing prepared him for the calamitous state of Central Coast Council when he was brought in to manage its affairs. “It was certainly the biggest financial collapse [of a local government] in NSW and possibly across Australia,” Mr Hart, appointed as Council Administrator in 2021 told the Central Coast Sun. “As pointed out by the commissioner [Roslyn McCullough] in the public enquiry report, they were incompetent people at the highest levels.” The former Coalition local government minister Wendy Tuckerman sacked all 15 suspended councilors in March 2022. The council with an estimated $750M annual turnover was suspended in October 2020 after it was found financially incompetent. More: page 7.
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