However former mayor Paul Pisasale, his deputy Paul Tully, and their two executives Carl Wulff and Jim Lindsay would make sure to swing by town that by no means sleeps on certainly one of their now notorious research excursions.
Earlier than jetting off for the 2010 tour, the 4 allotted themselves about $14,000 in spending cash as they went on the lookout for concepts to include right into a redevelopment of the Ipswich CBD.
This was the primary of a number of research excursions undertaken by the officers, after being appointed as administrators of the entity arrange by council, Ipswich Metropolis Properties, to drive the redevelopment.
Particulars of extreme spending on these journeys can now be revealed after 9News accessed a trove of paperwork, stored hidden for greater than a decade.
Whereas visiting the US, their official itinerary took in additional than 5 states and districts spanning California to Tennessee, but pictures from Las Vegas are additionally included of their journey file, regardless of not that includes on the official itinerary.
This tour would carry the native authorities officers in touch with diplomats like Australian Ambassador Kim Beazley.
They left presents alongside the best way, together with for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who later thanked them in a letter the place he stated he hoped they returned once more quickly.
Altogether, it price the publicly funded council firm greater than $85,000 for simply a few weeks.
Nevertheless it paled compared to their subsequent research tour to the Center East and Europe in 2012, which a Crime and Corruption Fee investigation would later discover price greater than $170,000 after the group chartered a non-public jet, stayed at luxurious accommodations and took a helicopter joy-flight.
The CCC investigation discovered proof the 4 "engaged in a big quantity of non-official exercise", spending an "extreme quantity on lodging" within the latter journey.
When approached by 9News, Tully didn't recall the specifics of his work-related excursions.
"What I bear in mind was occurring a visit abroad, two journeys abroad," he stated.
"I haven't got the data so genuinely I haven't got the data to remark.
"There was one journey 10 or 12 years in the past, one other journey roughly the identical period, I haven't got these data."
Particulars of those excursions can be stored secret for years regardless of a number of makes an attempt by media to learn the way the publicly backed entity was spending its cash.
In 2016, it was revealed Ipswich Metropolis Council spent an extra $83,000 on attorneys to struggle a number of makes an attempt to entry the paperwork below Proper to Info (RTI) legal guidelines.
Council attorneys efficiently argued personal corporations like Ipswich Metropolis Properties didn't fall below the identical necessities inside RTI legal guidelines as different public businesses.
However these very paperwork would later fall into the fingers of directors appointed by the State Authorities to council when it spectacularly dismissed elected officers in 2018, citing issues together with extreme abroad journey.
A McGrathNicol report commissioned by directors would uncover Ipswich Metropolis Properties encountered internet losses of as much as $78 million, with the council having to put in writing off $25 million of debt it was owed in 2019 earlier than it was wound up.
By the point a newly elected council took workplace in 2020, led by succeeding Mayor Teresa Harding, makes an attempt have been underway for these papers to be launched to the general public on the council's new "Transparency Hub" web site.
However that too can be scuttled, this time by the Workplace of the Info Commissioner for numerous causes, together with that former council employees must be afforded some rights to privateness.
"Councillors and Council workers could not have anticipated that their private data can be printed in an open dataset on this approach," Commissioner Rachael Rangihaeata acknowledged in her determination.
Nonetheless, the Commissioner's ruling wouldn't stop different events from submitting separate requests for entry to the papers.
Know extra? Contact reporter Josh Bavas at joshbavas@9.com.au