Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Councillor conduct

Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (18:05): (755) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Local Government. Will Ms Horne ensure that her department operates as a model litigant and overhaul her department’s Councillor Code of Conduct regime by (1) relinquishing control of the process to an independent agency, like the inspectorate, (2) ensuring that councillors are provided with indemnity against lawsuits and (3) withdrawing her plans to force the lowest paid, lowest level of elected government representatives to lodge their privately funded code of conduct appeals in the Supreme Court, the highest, most expensive court in the country, instead of VCAT. Currently the Councillor Code of Conduct system incentivises systematic misuse of the arbitration process because it denies natural justice, has no proper rules of evidence and arbiters – for whom I understand there is no actual job description – are preselected by the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions and appointed by Minister Horne’s own department.

The conflicts of interest are glaring, and therefore it is not surprising that the rulings coming out vary wildly and to many of us laypeople appear politically biased. There are cases like Cr Jasmine Hill at Wyndham, suspended for months despite no concrete evidence of the claims made against her ever being produced; Cr Susan Bissinger at Mornington Peninsula, where the CEO publicly announced that she had been banned from talking to council staff and then refused to ever tell her why – and when she made a guess publicly as to why, she was suspended; former Cr Steven Hughes from Frankston council, who was suspended on the basis that he made negative comments about the performance of council – I would have thought that was his job; Cr Daria Kellander from Hobsons Bay, suspended for explaining in an internal email to councillors that she felt uncomfortable participating in a closed-door meeting that she thought would unduly influence the outcome of the mayoral vote, à la Operation Sandon – and yet at that same council, then mayor Tony Briffa was declared guilty of misconduct for naming and defaming me, as it happens, as a far-right bigot and Nazi affiliate, on the basis of commentary from people in this building, I might add, and yet she received no sanction at all and was not even required to apologise or take it down.

Cr Melissa Ferguson at Latrobe City Council was forced to make a ridiculous apology simply for asking questions about where public bushfire recovery funds had gone and suspended and forced to apologise for retweeting a post about concerns of a person now being investigated for paedosadism. Oscar Yildiz from Merri-bek was publicly vilified by some of his own fellow councillors to the point of death threats, and yet nothing has happened to them. Crs Tachos and Kerr at Brimbank were denied any chance at mediation before being served with an incredibly long list of complaints. And do not forget that because these rulings are not only unfair but are ultimately public, the psychological distress is ridiculous. End this reign of terror.