Peter Schneider has just spent his first week back in the city's top job, and speaks out about how he navigated the last year and what he has in store for Warrnambool's future. KATRINA LOVELL reports.
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Last year Peter Schneider had to walk through his front door and tell his two little kids that "dad doesn't have a job anymore".
Mr Schneider had just been sensationally sacked in a 4-3 vote of city councillors on July 13, and what followed was a "pretty tough" 11-month journey.
"I won't say it wasn't tough, it was. I've never been in that position in my life, all of my career - and it has been quite an illustrious career that I've had," the city's chief executive officer said.
But despite it all, Mr Schneider was keen to focus on the positives that have come out of the decision to oust him after just 18 months in the council's top job.
"I've always tried to accentuate the positive rather than negative," he said. "We've had some absolutely fabulous community support. We've made a lot of friends. A lot of people have reached out to us.
"We've had cards and gifts from people we don't really know that introduced themselves to us and say they were there to support us as a community.
"Lucky we are both fairly resilient and we got through it."
Mr Schneider said it also gave him the opportunity to spend time with his young family - which during Victoria's lockdowns meant homeschooling his oldest son, Brecken, 6, who had just started prep.
His wife Terri-Ann took on a part-time job at night to help make ends meet and put dinner on the table.
"I've got a much better appreciation for what a stay at home mum actually does. Gees they're worth their weight in gold I can tell you," Mr Schneider said.
"I wouldn't say it hasn't been taxing on us as a family. The children are certainly aware of the circumstance. We don't really hide anything from our kids at all. As much as you try and shield them from some of the sensitive stuff, they pick up on the vibe," he said.
Packing up and returning to Perth was never a consideration. "We're well and truly invested in Warrnambool. We love Warrnambool," he said.
Until he was given his job back earlier this month, the last time Mr Schneider was in the council building was when then-mayor Tony Herbert delivered the news his contract had been terminated. He just packed up his office that night and left.
"I then just had to go home and tell the family the news: 'dad doesn't have a job anymore'. That was a little tough on the kids to hear that," he said.
"You try to do the right thing. So it was a big surprise, meeting all those KPIs and not having a job at the end of that day on the 13th (of July)."
Mr Schneider said he had "no choice" but to take legal action to restore his reputation.
"I went to a number of solicitors that I guess were smaller groups that just said: 'hmm, yeah, it's a tough one'. And then I found the legal team, David Grace was my QC, and he came highly recommended and David Shaw from Holding Redlich," he said.
After reviewing the case, Mr Schneider was assured the probability of him winning the case was high. If it had been a 50/50 chance, he said he probably wouldn't have gone for it.
"Based on that I took a chance," he said. "My wife was always there behind me. She said 'you've got to do it. you don't want to die wondering'."
He may be in the city's top job, but Mr Schneider's legal battle has some parallels with the classic Aussie movie The Castle.
"It's a little bit like The Castle and the little guy sort of goes in there and battles and wins. I feel a little bit like that," he said. "It was an emphatic win.
"On a level of fairness and passing the pub test, why should the CEO of an organisation be the only one that doesn't get natural justice and be able to hear what the accusations are?
"He (the judge) summed it up at some stage where he said to the defendants words to the effect of 'so you're telling me that the CEO can get caught in the political crosshairs through no fault of his own, marched out the back and shot and that's pretty much it?
"It's pretty much unAustralian and the judge picked it for what it was."
Mr Schneider said the result was a "massive relief" for no other reason than it goes some way to vindicating him and restoring his reputation - something the judge noted in his 56-page finding.
He described walking back into his old job on Monday as just like riding a bike. "You fall off and you get back on and you keep on going," he said.
"It's just like I've hit the ground running and just playing catch up now trying to get on top of things.
"The real thing for me is I'm glad I'm back here in the job. It's all I ever wanted to do - it wasn't about the money, wasn't looking for a payout or to get more money or anything.
"I was out and about today and one of the trucks went past and the guys are waving out the window and beeping the horn.
"That sort of reception is fantastic and I think they all want to get back on track with some of the initiatives we had planned for them."
Mr Schneider said he just wanted to be able to get on and do the work he started a year ago.
"We've got some great people that work for this organisation who want to do the right thing by Warrnambool and get the recognition for that because they do a bloody marvellous job," he said.
"They do get a bit of negativity. You've got to have a thick skin to work in local government because there is always someone willing to have a crack."
Mr Schneider said one of his top priorities would be helping the community through COVID and ensuring businesses prospered.
He said there were a lot of opportunities for Warrnambool with the building boom and tourism.
Mr Schneider said he wanted to get the message out the city was open for business. "We want some investment here. It would be nice to attract some sort of big industry cluster," he said.
As well as seeing through projects that are already in the pipeline - such as Reid Oval, the library and boat ramp upgrade - Mr Schneider said he was looking to follow through on what the city's hydrogen economy might look like.
Mr Schneider's long career includes both private and local government roles at companies including Coles Myer, Western Mining Corporation and Red Rooster and across different industries from retail to horticulture and agribusiness.
"I've always enjoyed not being pigeonholed," he said.
He moved into local government where he ran a world-wide tender for a "ground breaking contract" for a waste-to-energy project worth about a billion dollars which is currently under construction in East Rockingham.
He also put together an eight-council city deal which included the Perth airport as a private sector partner.
"We were hawking that deal around in Canberra and at one stage I had the deputy prime minister, the attorney general, the minister for local government and the minister for infrastructure all sitting around the one table at once," he said.
"They looked at each other and the deputy PM (Michael McCormack) said to me 'how did you pull off getting all these guys here in the same room because it's pretty much unheard of?"
While they didn't get the city deal, a number of infrastructure projects out of it were picked up by then prime minister Malcom Turnbull and WA government worth about two billion dollars.
After that Mr Schneider started looking for his next challenge, and the lure of bringing up his two young boys in a country region rather than the city led him to apply for jobs in Warrnambool and NSW.
While he was shortlisted for both, Warrnambool made the first offer and with family links dating back to last century to the city, he made the move. A relative of his once ran a private school in Warrnambool - something he is keen to research more about.
"I've had a fairly illustrious career. All the organisations I've worked for I've never come across anything like this. I've never asked for a pay rise in my life. I've been awarded a number based on merit and I've always found by doing the right thing and doing a good job is the best protection you can have until I came across this situation," he said.
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