Richard Mark Persson AM (born 1950) is a former senior New South Wales and Queensland public servant and local government administrator.
In 1974, Persson was an electoral officer for NSW ALP Senator, Arthur Gietzelt, and was involved in organising an advertising campaign to promote the achievements of the Whitlam Labor Government at the time.
[18] In 1997 the Commonwealth Government of John Howard brought Persson in to serve as Director of the 1997–98 National Housing Policy Review.
This included in the matter of planning decisions and conflicts of interests of the former councillors, the extent of which Persson found particularly surprising: "When I arrived here I was given a security card like most of us have nowadays.
I later found out it was to keep councillors out of some parts of the council, because they were literally standing over the shoulder of people reviewing development applications, asking them questions and putting pressure on them, possibly indirectly, certainly clearly."
"[33] On 27 February 2008 the Minister for Local Government, Paul Lynch, dismissed the Port Macquarie-Hastings Council and appointed Persson as the new administrator.
[36] Appointed for a four-year term, Minister Lynch noted that Persson had the task of "rebuilding the fundamentals of Council and to help re-unite the local community.
"[37] On 20 January 2009, administrator Dick Persson announced his decision to step down at the end of the month, citing the demands of being away from his Sydney home in Bronte for several days a week.
He described the Glasshouse project as a "wrong decision" by the Council, attributing it to "woolly thinking with the best of intentions from people not experienced with planning and delivering major capital works.
Mr Persson and acting general manager Rik Hart have done an outstanding job to date and I thank them for their efforts in these very challenging circumstances.
"[53] On 15 April, Persson sent his final report to Minister Hancock expressing his view that "by far the greatest reason CCC became insolvent was due to mismanagement of their budget over the years following the merger and leading up to their suspension" and recommending that the Local Government Minister, "take whatever action necessary to prevent the return of the currently suspended councillors, and to delay the September 2021 election to allow a formal Inquiry to determine what is needed to achieve the successful merger of the two previous Councils.
[57][58] In January 2022, the former CEO of Central Coast Council, Gary Murphy, launched a civil case alleging defamation against Persson in the District Court of New South Wales.