Former Onkaparinga Council boss Mark Dowd to take Supreme Court action against Disability Living SA

Former Onkaparinga council boss Mark Dowd will fight his “unreasonable” dismissal from a disability agency, with his lawyer saying he did an outstanding job.

Mark Dowd will launch Supreme Court action over the termination of his contract with Disability Living SA. His lawyer Greg Griffin said he had done an “outstanding” job.

Former council boss Mark Dowd will take legal action over his “unreasonable” dismissal from a disability housing provider less than a year into his contract, his high-profile lawyer says.

Greg Griffin said Mr Dowd – the former chief of Onkaparinga Council – had done an “outstanding” job leading Stepney based Disability Living SA out of a financial “quagmire”.

The Advertiser revealed that the NDIS housing provider had on July 9 parted ways “effective immediately” with its former chief executive, Mr Dowd, and a senior manager Kate Mason, who were employed last August.

Disability Living, which operates accommodation, education, and therapy services, has refused to elaborate on the specific reasons for the pair leaving the company.

Mr Griffin said he would lodge breach of contract proceedings on Mr Dowd’s behalf in the Supreme Court this month.

“The termination of Mark’s employment agreement was entirely unjustified and without any proper or reasonable basis,” he told The Advertiser in a statement.

“In the period that he was the CEO (his) time was mostly spent rectifying a range of issues that arose before he commenced his employment, which had they not been professionally dealt with would have inevitably resulted in the loss of NDIS funding …”

Griffins Lawyers’ Greg Griffin

Mark Dowd had been with Disability Living for less than a year.

He said Mr Dowd was able to minimise loses from a secured loan, which The Advertiser has learned Disability Living made to Helen Gerard, of the Gerard family dynasty, for a failed apartment development at Thebarton.

Disability Living loaned $3.85m to Ms Gerard in 2017 towards a $30m eight-storey project at 23-27 Walsh St, but in 2019 she declared bankruptcy.

Disability Living had written down the value of the loan by $2.624m as of June 30 last year.

The loan was secured over the Thebarton land – which was sold for an undisclosed sum last month – and another property owned by Ms Gerard.

Mr Griffin alleged the loan was made “in breach” of Disability Living’s constitution.

Disability Living chair Sandra Di Blasio said that Mr Dowd’s position was “untenable” but would not elaborate further.

“The board is satisfied and comfortable that it handled the matter appropriately,” she said.

She said matters pertaining to the loan were “inaccurate or irrelevant to this matter”.

Mark Dowd was at the helm of Onkaparinga Council for eight years, leaving in October 2019 a month before SA Ombudsman Wayne Lines found council staff had committed maladminstration over an expenses scandal.

Several former employees of Disability Living have told The Advertiser they had raised with the board their concerns about Mr Dowd and Ms Mason’s professional conduct prior to their departure.

Mr Griffin said attempts by others to “besmirch” the “reputations and work ethics” of Mr Dowd and Ms Mason were an “indictment on them and the … culture of DL not Mark or Kate”.

He said Ms Mason received her full entitlements and would not pursue a claim against her former employer.

In August 2019, SA Ombundsman Wayne Lines found Mr Dowd, while working for Onkaparinga Council, had committed misconduct when he accepted a partially paid for trip to Brisbane by a software company seeking a contract to upgrade the council’s computer systems.

He resigned from the council two months later and a month before Mr Lines found that council staff had committed maladministration by wasting thousands of ratepayers’ dollars on entertainment, flowers, expensive accommodation, and even a roof climb at Adelaide Oval between 2014 and 2016.