Lord Mayor, I’m afraid I’ve got some “bad news”.

More than half of the pages on this item are classified as Confidential.

Openness is certainly not the default position in the City of Sydney.

Again we use a generic template of classify this under section 10A(2)(d) of the Local Government Act.

As much as it suits the City of Sydney, to “manage democracy” in a way that makes it most convenient for us, the argument that tenders are confidential is nonsensical given our standard clause for tenderers.

That is Clause 11 that says, sorry we can’t offer you confidentiality and it’s all pretty such available to the public under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 – in other words it can be “Gipa(rd)” at any time.

Not sure how the excuse of the week, that we have to classify almost everything as confidential, because ICAC requires it, fits in? Last I checked ICAC wasn’t a regulatory body, they’re an investigative body.

Neither do I know how another standard clause we have in this tender, and all other tenders, fits in either.

It seems the City of Sydney has declared war on the Country of Burma. At item 13 of the Tender document, let me give it to you verbatim:

“BUSINESS WITH BURMA

The City has a specific requirement that Council will not, in certain circumstances, purchase goods or services provided by those who, Council is aware, conducts business in, or with, Burma, or who are willing to do so, until democracy has been restored and human rights violations have ceased.“

How or why we placed a City of Sydney fatwa on Burma I don’t know.

But it seems the Lord Mayor either doesn’t know or care as she told us all in her Mayoral minute in October Last year how proud she was that Council had given Burma $100,000 as a donation.

It seems the Lord Mayor is fine with us giving the Burmese money, just not buying Christmas decorations from them.

I wonder what the Foreign Minister thinks of our Burmese Blockade?

Kim Jong Un must be relieved we’re allowed to do business with North Korea.

You couldn’t make stuff like this up if you tried! This is a circus with free admission.