5 new complaints of inappropriate councillor conduct to be dealt with

A conduct breach by the Gympie Mayor will not be that council’s only controversy of 2022, with five more complaints to be resolved.

Gympie Regional Councillors (clockwise from left) Bruce Devereaux, Warren Polley, Town Hall, Mayor Glen Hartwig, Bob Fredman, Jess Milne, Deputy Mayor Hilary Smerdon, Dan Stewart, Shane Waldock and Dolly Jensen will end the year deciding on five more councilor complaints, with the matters to be debated behind closed doors at Wednesday’s meeting.

All eyes will be on Gympie Regional Council’s closed door session on Wednesday, December 7, with a new string of complaints against councillors to be resolved.

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Five complaints against councillors are expected to be resolved at the final council meeting of 2022, adding a high level of interest to the year’s swan song.

Details of which councillors are at the centre of the complaints, and the allegations of each matter, remain unknown.

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All five complaints will be debated behind closed doors; councillors will then vote in an open meeting.

The complaints come after Mayor Glen Hartwig was found to have engaged in inappropriate conduct by a narrow 3-2 council vote .

The five new complaints follow in the wake of Mayor Glen Hartwig being found to have engaged in inappropriate conduct in October 2022, a matter for which further details still have not been revealed.

Mr Hartwig, Bruce Devereaux, Dolly Jensen and Shane Waldock were absent for the vote owing to conflicts of interest.

Deputy Mayor Hilary Smerdon and Bob Fredman were the two dissenting voices, rejecting the investigation’s findings.

All five councillors agreed Mr Hartwig should not be further punished for the breach.

However, details about the breach remain a mystery; the councillor conduct register contains no mention of the matter more than a month after its resolution.

A council spokesman said a fortnight after the council vote it would not be releasing a redacted copy of the investigation to the public.

The report could be sought under a Right to Information request, he said, noting exemptions existed under the Act “to protect essential public interests or the personal or business information of others”.