Burnside councillors call for Julian Carbone’s resignation after Insta message scandal

The Burnside councillor, embroiled in an Instagram scandal involving an underage girl, says he will run at the next election despite calls for his resignation.

Burnside Councillors are demanding the resignation of a fellow member accused of sending an inappropriate message to the Instagram account of a 17-year-old girl.

On Tuesday night, the council voted to order councillor Julian Carbone to issue a public apology, remove any official council affiliation from his Instagram account and undergo social media training.

But some councillors demanded more needed to be done including Cr Henry Davis, who was adamant Cr Carbone should resign.

“I condemn Cr Carbone’s behaviour and while we cannot ask him to resign, I feel strongly that he should resign,” he said.

Julian Carbone, Burnside Council. Picture: Instagram

“In no circumstances would this behaviour pass the moral standard of any member of the community, let alone an elected member.”

Councillor Jane Davey endorsed Cr Davis’s comments adding Cr Carbone is a threat to the reputation of the council.

“The council operates in the community with integrity and this incident reflects poorly on the councillor involved and therefore all of us,” she said.

Cr Mike Daws challenged Cr Davis and Cr Davey saying he is hopeful the incident would be a one time occurrence and Cr Carbone knows what he did was wrong.

On Wednesday morning, Julian Carbone said he would be running in the next local government election and would not resign.

“I think that’s (calls to resign are) a little bit of a stretch, it was sent by mistake (the message),” Mr Carbone told ABC Radio Adelaide.

“It’s not the sort of message that I would ever send to anyone.”

He hoped the rate payers of Burnside would support him.

“I’ve been doing a lot of great things in the community, I’ve been a very passionate, very active advocate for my residents.

“I’d like to think that the residents will remember me for all the great things that I’ve done over the last term.”

One of the accounts Julian Carbone’s Instagram account followed of a girl claiming to be 16.

Another account Julian Carbone’s deleted Instagram account used to follow before it was deleted on Monday.

Concerns were raised at the meeting regarding how the council will hold Cr Carbone accountable to the orders.

The council’s chief executive officer Chris Cowley said there are measures in place.

“I will arrange for a copy of the written apology to ascertain that it occurred and the apology to council will be made in a council meeting” he said.

“A simple search will be able to determine whether the Instagram account has been deleted or renamed and the training will be provided through the governance team and an external provider, so I will be able to ascertain if it has been completed.”

A request was made for the deadline to be moved forward from August 31 to August 9 to fall within the current term.

But about the same time that evening, Cr Carbone deleted his account claiming it had been hacked, hours after The Advertiser revealed his account was following a number of accounts claiming to be teenagers.

In a separate agenda item, the council heard a request to determine why the cost of the investigation into the allegations was so high.

Mr Cowley confirmed the average cost of a Code of Conduct investigation is $6,000 to $8,000, yet ratepayers coughed up more than $11,500 for the investigation regarding Cr Carbone.

Cr Davis put forward the motion and said there has been an outcry from the community for Cr Carbone to repay the legal costs.

“Many of these legal fees were unnecessarily incurred,” he said.

“This is a good opportunity to consider what options are available to us … and I believe it would strengthen the community’s confidence in us as a council.”

Cr Harvey Jones said Cr Carbone was being singled out, making reference to previous breaches of Code of Conduct by other council members.

In response, Cr Davis reiterated the report could help reform the council’s policies.

“We are not asking for those fees to be repaid now, we want to understand our abilities as a council and to help inform future councils,” he said.

The motion was carried.

The council can choose to seek reimbursement under the current Code of Conduct policy.

Cr Carbone was absent from the meeting and a formal apology was noted by Mayor Anne Monceaux.