Cullen pays price for Shire of Coolgardie’s crippling financial crisis, losing seat at head of council table

Malcolm Cullen, who led the Shire of Coolgardie into a financial crisis described as “unprecedented” in WA’s local government history, has paid the price, losing his seat at Saturday’s election. Voters elected Paul Wilcox as the top-polling candidate, with Tony Ball second, former councillor Tammee Keast third, and Julie-Ann Williams fourth. All will serve four-year terms. The other sitting councillor standing for re-election, Rose Mitchell, failed to retain her seat. Sitting councillors Sheryl Botting and Kathie Lindup chose not to stand for re-election. Councillors still around the table because they were not up for re-election on Saturday include deputy president Tracey Rathbone, Daphne Simmons and Corey Matthews. Mr Cullen’s ousting paves the way for a new president to be elected at the first meeting of the new council on Tuesday. The next 12 months promises to be a testing time for the council, which will be assessed quarterly by Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley, who last Monday chose not to suspend the council after issuing a show-cause notice in August, instead granting it 12 months to get its affairs in order. Ms Beazley told a community meeting in the Goldfields town the shire’s financial position was “unprecedented” in WA’s history, with the debt-to-revenue ratio placing it “very much in danger of folding” by the end of the 2024-25 financial year. The shire’s debt blew out to $30.49 million at June 30, 2024, before being pegged back to $27.5m by June 30 this year. The need to repay the debt and interest — some $21.47m in the past three financial years alone — placed extreme stress on the shire’s cash flow, leading to service cuts and the refinancing of its loans with the Commonwealth and ANZ banks to ease the pressure. It changed the $12.96m loan to 10 years with three years interest-only, and the $8.42m loan to 10 years with five years of interest-only payments, while also borrowing an extra $4.08m within this five-year interest-only period. Ms Beazley last Monday did not specify a benchmark financial position the shire would need to achieve in the next 12 months to be taken entirely off the chopping block and said no options — including the previously proposed boundary adjustment with the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder — would be off the table in the future. “The council are optimistic that they’ll be in a position in 12 months’ time to have financial stability and viability — I don’t share that level of optimism, but I would be happy to be proven wrong,” she said. “I will say this is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I still have very grave concerns for the financial situation that the Shire of Coolgardie is in. “They’re going to be monitored like a hawk.” The primary cause of the spiralling situation was the construction of the Bluebush Village workers accommodation facility in Kambalda — which the council is now looking to sell to help ease the crisis. The council last month approved a financial recovery plan which sets out a 10-year strategy to wipe the debt — a process expected to take less time if Bluebush Village is sold. The shire last month said the sales process would likely take up to eight months. The financial recovery plan put a “conservative” price tag of $19m on the facility. Mr Cullen’s failure to be re-elected caps a tumultuous six months — as well as the full scale of the financial disaster being made public in March, the shire was forced to rescind its mining rates hike initially proposed to be 119 per cent but reduced to the low 90 per cent range before Ms Beazley blocked it after an outcry from mining companies big and small, as well as prospectors. The council in July also terminated the employment of chief executive James Trail, two days before his resignation was due to take effect. That move stemmed from the public release of the Auditor General’s report into the shire’s 2023-24 financial year, which highlighted a variety of “significant concerns”, including that Mr Trail had employed a senior project officer who was actually living on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. The council had previously suspended Mr Trail from the role last November after allegations of workplace culture issues emerged, leading to the commissioning of an independent investigation. The findings prompted Ms Beazley to propose a “boundary adjustment” between the shire and the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder — effectively a merger. Mr Trail’s legacy continues to rankle shire residents, with several raising the topic of his role in creating the financial crisis with Ms Beazley at last Monday’s meeting.