A consultancy firm called Bang the Table is offering its services to councils across NSW and has already reached financial agreements to work for Hornsby and Shoalhaven Councils.
The idea is simple: Bang the Table is a community forum website which offers a venue for ratepayers, activists, residents and community groups to argue, debate, deplore and generally sound off about current development activities in their neighbourhood.
Bang the Table is the brainchild of Matthew Crozier and Dr Crispin Butteriss though their names don’t appear on the webpage.
Crozier and Butteriss are the directors of Bang the Table Pty Ltd which was registered with ASIC last August. The business’s registered office is given as The Junction, NSW 2291.
Crozier and Butteriss are also directors of Duo Consulting Pty Ltd registered in October 2006 which operates from the same address as Bang the Table.
Before becoming a private lobbyist, Crozier worked for the NSW Labor Government in the Hunter region managing planning and infrastructure projects and in the coordinator general’s division of the Premier’s Department.
Since privatising himself Crozier’s clients have included Bob Rose’s Rosecorp, Hardie Holdings, Stockland, Rio Tinto Coal, Crighton Properties and Astonfields.
His website blurb boasts:
Among his many projects, Matthew has assisted Rosecorp to gain consent for an 1189 dwelling development at Breakfast Point, and is currently providing advice on a 600 dwelling development at Catherine Hill Bay and 300 dwelling development at Gwandalan. He has also worked closely with the Hardie Holdings team on Sweetwater, an 8000 lot development proposed to lie between Cessnock, Maitland and Singleton.
Butteriss also did his apprenticeship in the bureaucracy of the Labor Government. He worked for two years in the Premier’s Department and with the Minister for the Illawarra, the Planning Department and the Environment Protection Authority.
“This equipped Crispin with a thorough understanding of the State’s planning and development processes,” his resume says.
Duo Consulting tells potential clients: “We utilise our insiders’ knowledge of government priorities and policies to work with your team to develop the best approach to ensure a fast and smooth approval pathway through local and State Government for your project.”
By way of background it adds: “Crispin and Matthew first worked together running an intelligence unit in the Department of Planning looking ahead 50 years to the future of the State and its regions and key centres.”
With Crozier an expert on the Hunter and Butteriss specialising in the Illawarra, they make this hard sell: “Duo’s long established networks, particularly in the Illawarra and Hunter regions, allow us to efficiently manage your relationships with government agency and council staff … Both directors have been employed at a senior level in both NSW Premier’s Department and the NSW Department of Planning and have extensive state and local government networks.”
So the dynamic duo wear two hats: on one hand they work directly for big developers and on the other they offer a platform for online community consultation for councils through Bang the Table.
Answering a customer inquiry, Crozier said in an email this week: “We are a new and small business so it is natural people will be a little suspicious as they get used to us. However we are genuiniely (sic) committed to improving the commimitys (sic) say in government decision making processes.”
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald reports that Planning Minister Frank Sartor is about to decide whether to approve — against strenuous local opposition — Rosecorp’s plan to build 600 luxury apartments at Catherine Hill Bay, 100 km north of Sydney, a project on Duo Consulting’s client list. It will be interesting to see whether Sartor supports Rosecorp or the local community.
In response to Alex Mitchell’s comments – Bravo!
In response to ‘Bang the Table’, we deserve much better please. I heard about your operation from a friend who is concerned about how you go about your business. It would, of course, have helped if you were upfront about all your close connections with the Big End Of Town first. At the end of the day, you have a clear conflict of interest, and there is no guarantee who your real masters are. But we think we know who is paying for your services – Government bodies, big business, and not we, the little taxpayers who your claim to represent. It is also sad to see that when a Council has lost interest in responding directly with the community it is supposed to serve, it prefers to hand over ‘community liaison’ to a paid consultant. Yet more wastage of ratepayers funds.
I’m sorry, but a ‘One-Stop-Shop’ for your services – is just another expensive PR campain to me.
Why can’t we just talk directly with our representatives – after all, that’s why we voted for them and pay our rates!
Alex and Crikey readers,
Well they say that all publicity is good publicity but it sure doesn’t feel like it tonight.
The author has raised some really important issues in his article that deserve to be addressed in a public forum like this.
First up, we were remiss not putting our names and backgrounds on the website. We apologise. It was an oversight that will be corrected by tomorrow evening rather than a deliberate decision to in any way conceal our identities – we are actually both really quite proud of the fact that we have created Bang the Table from scratch. It is the first service of its type anywhere in the world and we are both committed to developing a platform that helps the community get involved in debates about public policy. It is quite possibly the most important contribution that either of us has made to public policy development thus far in our careers, including our time working for government. It is also worth noting that we go into some detail about our backgrounds and experiences that lead to the creation of Bang the Table on our blog at http://www.onlinecommunityconsultation.com which is promoted on Bang the Table.
Secondly, yes we are Directors of Duo Consulting Pty Ltd. Our work at Duo is currently being wrapped up, but without it we would not have had the experience or finances to launch Bang the Table. As well as the private sector clients Alex noted, we also did work for the University of Newcastle, and Tamworth and Wyong Councils.
Thirdly, it is also absolutely true that we both have a background in Government. Between us we have worked in a range of roles for around 10 government departments as they went through various amalgamations and dis-aggregations. But surely this is a good thing? We have a combined experience of around 35 years in public policy, which, along with genuine debate, is what we are both passionate about and the reason we established Bang the Table.
Fourthly, unfortunately our experience in government did teach us that the community gets ignored too often and that a more robust and open method of consultation is needed. But it also taught us that too often it is a small group of individuals who claim to represent the views of the community without any evidence to that effect, rather than the community more generally, who take control of the public policy space. Too often we have seen reasonable people walk out of community meetings because they are yelled down by one or two vocal, persistent and dare I say it, rude, individuals. And too often I have seen decisions unduly influenced by the regular letter writers rather than good quality policy discourse. It is this vocal minority who don’t like the idea of a space where everyone can have their say without fear of receiving a barrage of abuse from an angry activist with an often hidden agenda. Bang the Table provides an opportunity for people who wouldn’t ordinarily get involved in public policy debate to have their say in the peace and security of their own home or office.
Fifthly, the article is clearly heavy with the implication that we are influenced in our moderation of the debate by the organisations we host. One look at the nature of the comments on the site today will confirm that this is patently untrue. When and organisation chooses to use Bang the Table, they open themselves to the possibility of criticism. This is to be applauded. At last, transparent public policy debate! We only remove comments if they are offensive, defamatory or spam. Lively and vigorous debate is encouraged.
Finally, it would have been great to have received a phone call from the author to discuss our business, backgrounds and motivations for establishing Bang the Table. We believe that there is a really good news story in here waiting to get out, a story about two Aussie blokes who built a service that lets people debate the issues that affect them in the knowledge that they will not be censored (within a few pretty reasonable site rules) and knowing the decision-making organisation is actually listening . Take a look at the current debates on the site and make up your own mind. We welcome feedback and ideas for improvements.
regards
Matt and Crispin
Having the same co-directors of a consultancy that lobbies for large developments ( Duo Consulting Pty Ltd. ) and another company (Bang The Table) which monitors community ‘consultation’ for NSW Councils – is very clearly a conflict of interests.
Could these very highly qualified and talented co-directors, Matthew Crozier and Dr Crispin Butteriss (who were former senior NSW public servants) have just made a simple error? Any other companies we need to know about?