Yarra City Council under fire for ‘political correctness gone mad’ after banning childcare workers from receiving Christmas gifts from grateful families

A council has come under fire for ‘political correctness gone mad’ after banning childcare workers from receiving Christmas presents from grateful families.

The new policy is part of a new broad crackdown in the city of Yarra, Melbourne, to help stop bribery and kickbacks to staff, and came into effect this week.

‘It’s political correctness gone mad. If they want to fix governments, go fix the real problems,” said Adam Promnitz, co-founder of Yarra Residents Collective. 3AW Melbourne.

‘Don’t punish the lowest-paid employees.

Mr Promnitz said the blanket ban on council staff and workplaces was “madness” and that common sense should prevail.

“All we want is to thank our teachers with a small token of appreciation,” said Adam Promnitz, co-founder of Yarra Residents Collective (stock image)

‘It’s a new low. The people who care for our children have no decision-making power.

“Childcare educators: they don’t make planning decisions, they’re not the ones awarding $10 million contractors to developers.

‘All we want is to thank our teachers with a small token of appreciation.’

Mr Promnitz said the council will take all gifts received by childcare workers and donate them to charities on behalf of the donors.

He posted on the Yarra Resident Collective Facebook page that giving a gift to a teacher is part of an Australian Christmas tradition and helps teach children values.

‘She [the council] are really the grinches who stole Christmas.”

Yarra City Council CEO Sue Wilkinson told Daily Mail Australia the council is grateful their staff is held in such high regard and knows some parents are disappointed with their position.

“We are extremely proud of all our employees who have done fantastic work for our community all year,” she said.

“Many of our employees have regulatory and compliance responsibilities and the policy is designed to protect our employees from risks surrounding alleged corruption or impropriety.

The City of Yarra has confirmed that all gifts received by staff will be donated to charities in the Yarra area

‘We want our community to be confident that all our employees will act with integrity at all times and that is why a consistent approach is taken across all our employees.

“While we are humbled by the kindness and support of our community, we unfortunately cannot accept gifts, even if they are well-intentioned.”

Ms Wilkinson confirmed that all gifts received by staff will be donated to charities in the Yarra area.

The gifts policy was changed after Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission published the final report of its five-year investigation into local government earlier this year.

They discovered that developer John Woodman had given suburban councilors hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for project support.

As a result, the watchdog for municipalities, the Inspectorate for Local Government, has issued advice to municipalities on how they should come up with better policies.

The blanket ban on gifts came into effect this week and applies to all council workers in the city of Yarra

Yarra city councilor Stephen Jolly said this The age While he supported a stricter policy for councillors, he believed banning Christmas presents for childcare workers was “ridiculous and heavy-handed.”

Mr Jolly is seeking to have the decision reversed and has taken the matter to the council’s chief administrative officer.

“It’s a collective punishment,” he said.

‘How is giving a mince pie at Christmas to a childcare or nursery teacher, who has the lowest pay and has looked after your child all year, bribery or possibly corruption?

3AW radio personality Tom Elliott said the council’s move isn’t too surprising as they have appointed a person to ‘look after flags and they have a waste tax’.

But he also wondered how giving a Christmas gift to a childcare worker could ever be interpreted as something sinister.

“On what grounds can a gift to the kindergarten teacher be considered bribery?” he said.

‘What? Do you get more plasticine than the other children? Can you play baby Jesus in the Christmas play?’