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Let’s be honest about what just happened in Cessnock.
A council doesn’t wake up one morning and accidentally ask residents for a 39.9 percent rate rise.
That number does not appear by magic.
It is designed. It is signed off. It is presented deliberately to ordinary people who are already struggling to pay mortgages, fuel their cars, and keep the lights on.
And at the centre of that decision sits one man: the Chief Financial Officer of Cessnock City Council, Matthew Plumridge.
In any serious organisation, in any private company, in any government department that still believes in accountability, this would already be over.
He would have resigned.
Because here is the basic rule of leadership: if you are responsible for the finances, then you are responsible when the finances collapse.
You don’t get to hide behind committees.
You don’t get to blame “process”.
You don’t get to say “it wasn’t my decision”.
Your job is to stop disasters like this from ever reaching the public.
A 39.9 percent rate rise is not a policy error.
It is a failure of competence.
And when competence fails at the top, the only remedy is resignation.
Yet instead, we are told this is somehow reasonable.
That this is necessary.
That the public simply doesn’t understand.
That’s always the line.
But the truth is much simpler.
If a family mismanages their budget, they cut spending.
If a business mismanages its books, executives lose their jobs.
If a council mismanages public money, suddenly nobody is responsible.
That is not governance.
That is a protection racket.
The people of Cessnock are not an ATM.
They are not there to clean up the mistakes of senior executives who still collect their salaries while demanding more from everyone else.
If Cessnock Council is serious about rebuilding trust, there is one obvious first step.
The Chief Financial Officer, Matthew Plumridge, must resign — effectively immediately.
Not next month.
Not after a review.
Not after the backlash fades.
Now.
Because if nobody is accountable for a 39.9 percent rate rise, then the system itself is broken.
And broken systems do not fix themselves.