Local Government Minister Geoff brock rejects Burnside Council plea for ‘urgent assistance’ over councillor Lance Bagster

GEOFF Brock has rejected Burnside Council’s plea for “urgent assistance” to deal with the “significant risk” one of its elected members allegedly poses to the workplace.

Burnside councillor Lance Bagster. Source: File

• Burnside seeks Minister meeting after losing confidence in councillor
• Mediator warns councillor’s ‘high risk behaviour’ poses safety risk
• How acrimony spread throughout Burnside Council

THE Local Government Minister has rejected Burnside Council’s plea for “urgent assistance” to deal with the “significant risk” one of its elected members allegedly poses to the workplace.

The council last week called for Minister Geoff Brock’s intervention after the release of independent mediator Theressa Hines’s 465-page report into the relationship between Cr Lance Bagster and Burnside chief executive Paul Deb.

Ms Hines’s report found Cr Bagster had engaged in a “horrendous” campaign against Mr Deb and senior staff, including “systemic, ongoing bullying, harassing and stalking”.

Mr Brock was last week unavailable for comment, but a spokeswoman said it would be “inappropriate” for him to meet with the council while a Safe Work SA investigation into the situation was ongoing.

Local Government Minister Geoff Brock in Parliament.

“The Minister would prefer not to risk compromising the integrity of the current investigation before it has run its due course by meeting with the council,” the spokeswoman said.

A SafeWork SA spokesman last week would not comment on when the investigation might be completed.

Burnside acting chief executive Martin Cooper last week said the council needed Mr Brock’s “urgent assistance” to deal with the situation.

“Under the Local Government Act, one of the mechanisms for removal of an elected member from their position is with the intervention of the Governor,” Mr Cooper said.

Councillors last week agreed to publicly release Ms Hines’s report following a private meeting convened to discuss its findings.

In the report, Ms Hines said Cr Bagster’s behaviour – which she claimed dated back to 2015 – exposed staff and elected members to “significant risks” and the council to possible breaches of workplace safety laws.

“It makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to understand how the organisation can continue to accommodate Councillor Bagster in this role,” Ms Hines’s report stated.

Minutes of the meeting, seen by the Eastern Courier Messenge r, showed councillors accepted Ms Hines’s findings and voted to declare they had “no confidence in Cr Bagster to continue in his position as an elected member”.

The vote was not unanimous – councillors Peter Ford, Anne Monceaux and Graham Bills opposed the motion.

Ms Hines was commissioned by the council to examine a feud between Cr Bagster and Mr Deb, as well as provide recommendations for how to manage the relationships in the future.

Cr Bagster did not respond to request for comment.

He last month told the Eastern Courier Messenger that he rejected Ms Hines’s findings as “unfair and unjust” and said he felt the claims against him were part of a campaign by the council to destroy his reputation.

Read the report for yourself: