OIA clears Gympie councillors of nine more complaints

Complaints continue to fly against Gympie councillors past and present, with the State council watchdog forced to deal with nine allegations in the past three months.

Allegations an ex-councillor slandered Gympie’s sitting members and the public are among nine more complaints thrown out by the State Governmnet’s council watchdog.

Allegations an ex-Gympie councillor slandered sitting councillors and the public online have been thrown out by the State’s watchdog as complaints continue to fly thick and fast around the council.

The latest update to Gympie Regional Council’s councillor conduct register reveals nine complaints have been assessed by the Office of the Information Commissioner in the past three months.

They add to a growing list of complaints made since the March 2020 election.

Elected councillors are not the only ones having fingers pointed at them.

One allegation accused an unnamed former councillor of “slandering current councillors and other members of the public on social media”.

The OIA dismissed the complaint as the accused was no longer a councillor and the alleged comments were made after they were out of office.

Gympie’s elected councillors are not the only ones to have accusations of misconduct made against them, with complaints made to the OIA about two unnamed ex-councillors.

Another complaint claimed an ex-councillor “may have been associated with unlawful conduct” in relation to funding given to community groups “as mentioned in a councillor’s comments”.

This was rejected as the accused ex-councillor was not named in any of the comments in question.

Of the sitting councillors, one unnamed councillor referred themself after giving a staff phone number to their partner, who wanted to speak with them.

The OIA threw this one out as the councillor followed rules and made an online request for the details.

In another allegation a councillor was accused of threatening a council worker while chasing up a complaint from the public about the use of a public parking space.

The nine new complaints have added to a growing list of allegations made since the March election, with almost all of them thrown out by the State watchdog.

The councillor in question accepted they were “frustrated” but disputed the accusation, and the OIA took into account the councillor did acknowledge the employee was “doing their best” when they chose to dismiss the matter.

Another councillor was accused of making “false and misleading statements” to the media and “quoted a direct lie to the community by significantly inflating the cost of the process in an attempt to persuade the audience and community that the application process and fee was inappropriate and expensive”.

The OIA found in the councillor’s favour, saying council staff advised them the stated cost was reasonable and similar examples could be found.

Councillor Dan Stewart remains the only elected official to have been found guilty of misconduct after the OIA ruled he breached council confidentiality rules on social media in an August 2019 post. Photo Renee Albrecht/Gympie Times

More than half of the complaints were dismissed by the OIA for failing to raise a reasonable suspicion of misconduct.

Despite the growing list of accusations Dan Stewart remains the only councillor to have been found guilty of misconduct in the 17 months since the election.

Mr Stewart was fined $700 and forced to apologise for breaching council confidentiality in a Facebook post in August 2019.