Councillor on $150k/year allegedly cried poor for free tickets

A GOLD Coast councillor will literally have to face the music this week for allegedly misusing his position to get free tickets to a Cat Empire concert.

A GOLD Coast councillor will literally have to face the music this week after being hauled before the Councillor Conduct Tribunal for allegedly misusing his position to get free tickets to a Cat Empire concert.

The owners of popular former Gold Coast venue the NightQuarter lodged a formal complaint against Mudgeeraba-based councillor Glenn Tozer after he attended the concert with his wife and then wrote a review for a magazine he moonlights for.

Cr Tozer has been summoned to appear before the tribunal on Tuesday after the matter was referred by council watchdog the Office of the Independent Assessor.

Councillor Glenn Tozer. Picture: Jerad Williams

The complaint relates to a concert featuring top Aussie rock cat The Cat Empire held at NightQuarter at Helensvale last September.

NightQuarter owner Ian Van der Woude is believed to have alleged that Cr Tozer hit him up for free tickets for him and his wife Jude to attend, and later wrote a review for Coast magazine Blank GC.

However, Mr Van der Woude is understood to have alleged that Blank had already been allocated complimentary tickets to review the show.

It is alleged that Cr Tozer, who earns more than $150,000 a year, told Mr Van Der Woude that “money (is) a little tight”.

Cr Tozer told The Sunday Mail that the ticket allocation was “a matter for them (Blank)”.

“I was told to write (the review) and I did … it was published,” he said.

Cr Tozer added that he was “not just an advocate for music industry, I’m a participant … as a writer for Blank GC and as a former chairman of a radio station”.

“It’s a bit like (Mayor) Tom Tate; he’s not just an advocate for the development industry, he’s a participant in it,” Cr Tozer said. “Sometimes people make complaints about that. We’ll let that process run its course.”

Cr Tozer has been at loggerheads with Cr Tate, lodging complaints about the Mayor’s former chief-of-staff Wayne Moran, who was sacked last month after a scathing Crime and Corruption Commission report criticised his links to developers.

In 2018, the Mayor was fined and ordered to undergo counselling after attacking Cr Tozer on social media over council funding he obtained for a university course.

Councillors led by Cr Tate had voted to stop subsidising an $80,000 Master of Business Administration course Cr Tozer was studying at elite Bond University.

Last month, The Sunday Mail revealed that Cr Tozer had asked the council to partly fund a private trip to New York with his wife so he could meet with World Kindness Movement representatives.