As controversy continues to swirl around the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation, a major recipient of funding from Noosa Council, KEITH JACKSON reveals his experience of trying to make the organisation more transparent and accountable.
The Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation certainly stirs up passion and paranoia in this paradise of ours. Case in point, there’s talk going around, fanned it seems by a couple of Noosa Councillors, that my own fairly well known reformist stance on NBRF is driven by ‘bitterness’.
This ‘bitterness’, it is alleged, was triggered by not being selected for a Board position when the organisation was first established in 2013 on the ashes of the previous Noosa Biosphere Foundation (NBL). In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed to miss the gig – my CV ticked all the boxes – but I lead a happy and fulfilling life in Noosa and looking back in rancour is really not my thing.
I’m seeking change in the organisation because it represents a dysfunction in our community: being closed, non-transparent, replete with conflicts of interest and, although dependent on ratepayers’ money, unaccountable to ratepayers.
An invitation refused
In late 2016, three years after the appointment of the first Board, I was asked if I’d be interested in becoming a director. Those three years had seen a period of great upheaval in NBRF and, along with the rest of the Noosa community, I’d heard the stories of internal clashes and bullying. So I was cautious about joining the Board and decided to undertake some due diligence to find out what I might be getting into. This I did in three overlapping stages.
First, I reviewed the paperwork (things like the NBRF Constitution and Unesco’s own documents on how Biospheres should operate). Next, I spoke privately with a dozen or so people associated with both sides of the NBRF flambé as well as others who had been part of its predecessor organisation, NBL. Finally, I undertook a series of meetings with then-Chairman Campbell Corfe and Mayor Tony Wellington.
At the end of this process I considered myself well briefed on what was clearly a troubled organisation. (Campbell, who was to resign not long after, had told me he thought NBRF was “fragile”.)
After some agonising, I decided not to join the Board unless Campbell and Tony:
- agreed to initiate reforms to make NBRF more democratic, transparent and accountable,
- agreed to reconcile with people who had been hurt by past conflict, and
- agreed to an external independent review of NBRF operations.
To say I didn’t get to square one on any of these propositions is an understatement. Campbell seemed sympathetic but Tony was strongly opposed. So I said to them, sorry, I can’t accept the appointment, and walked away. Unbitterly, I might add.
Unwillingness to reform
A few months later I broke my silence when news of bullying and other problems within NBRF was published in Noosa Today and Campbell was quoted as saying the organisation had a policy on conflict of interest but he would not release it to the public.
This unwillingness to be transparent about such an important matter irritated me, so I wrote a letter to the newspaper disclosing the reform proposals I had put to Campbell and Tony, including one to investigate and clear up possible conflicts of interest. I did not mention that, a couple of months before, I had rejected an offer to join the Board.
The letter immediately triggered talk from a Noosa Councillor that I was “bitter” about not being selected for a Board appointment more than three years previously. That’s how these people think. At that stage, he was probably unaware I’d just knocked back a direct invitation to become a director.
Accusations continue
The accusations continue to this day as a convenient explanation of why I seek the reform of NBRF. The inference is that it’s not because I believe reform will be beneficial for the organisation and the community, but because I am …. ‘bitter’.
I guess the directors find it easier to externalise blame than to fix NBRF – an organisation cut off from the community and believing its problems are primarily caused by others.
A grain of insight would inform directors that a non-transparent closed-shop using ratepayers’ money to grant funds to entities associated with members will always be singled out as a target of public angst and confusion. Unless there is reform, NBRF is likely to remain a chronically troubled organisation.
Non-democratic by design
It seems NBRF’s founders never wanted the organisation to be answerable to the community. You just have to read the Constitution they wrote to realise that. They clearly wanted an NBRF that they and they alone could control.
But when they failed to give effect to their own fundraising aspirations and had to turn to Noosa Council for money, they forfeited any right to absolute control. Why? Because with every call upon ratepayers’ money comes a corresponding obligation to account to ratepayers for how it is spent.
That said we still don’t know how much money ratepayers, through Noosa Council, have provided to NBRF. This failure to disclose is a serious black mark against the Council. It gives rise to suspicion about reasons for the secrecy. Perhaps, as the figure escalates upwards towards two million dollars, they feel embarrassed.
More recently, NBRF has been forced into a form of accountability (it now presents reports twice a year) but it has been dragged by its ears to offer even this minor transparency.
Untruthful and mendacious comments about me and my wife, Councillor Ingrid Jackson, continue amongst a small fraction of malign people associated both with Noosa Council and NBRF. Recently, for example, I’ve seen a document written by a Councillor which asserted a number of venomous, false and damaging assertions about Ingrid.
Will Council get a commitment to reform?
We have reached a sad impasse in our Shire when elected officials feel it is appropriate to promote smears and issue threats. But it has happened. It is still happening.
I understand NBRF is about to negotiate a new three-year funding deed with the Council. This is the only opportunity the Council will have in the foreseeable future to regularise NBRF as a responsible, democratic and community-based organisation.
It is an opportunity to insist that NBRF reform itself, primarily by democratising and building greater accountability and transparency into its Constitution.
Noosa Council has the power to hold back funding until it gets some commitment from NBRF to such reform. But is it up to the task?
The history of this controversy so far suggests it is not.
