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No More Harm Conference – Melbourne April 2018

Posted on February 21, 2018 in Bullying in the News by editor

Sheila Freeman will be presenting at the No More Harm Conference on Thursday 12th April commencing at 4:02 PM – 4:32 PM the topic is LEADERSHIP ABUSE, REPAIR & RESTORE POSITIVE LEADERSHIP and will be addressing the issues of bullying identified within the Local Government sector.

Numerous cases of bullying have been exposed in the media not only within their organisations but with elected Councillors. In 2016 an independent commission of inquiry was established in the City of Greater Geelong (Victoria) where by the Minister for Local Government, this led to the Council being sacked and administrators appointed. At the City of Burnside (South Australia) the alleged bully was a Councillor who targeted the CEO, staff members and the general public.

In late 2016 a document was tabled in Queensland State Parliament alleging a toxic workplace culture within their local government workforce’s not only in the Southern Downs Regional Council but also Cairns, Tablelands, Fraser Coast and Gympie Regional Councils, and it stated that in some cases staff had committed suicide.

Sheila will specifically be looking at the City of Burnside South Australia, and what are the implications for other councils within Australia following a decision by the Fair Work Commission that it could not hear the stop bullying application as the Council was not a ‘constitutionally-covered business’.

Local Government case studies will be presented where natural justice for alleged perpetrators and victims of bullying has been denied.

Sheila will discuss how a workplace assessment is a positive not a negative, the benefits to organisations and employees and ask why do organisations wait until an issue is identified before conducting an assessment of their workplace?  The cost of an assessment far outweighs the cost of complaints such as WorkCover claims, investigations and litigation, not to mention any adverse publicity to the organisation.