“ 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...