Candidate’s Facebook allegations quashed by ICEO

Allegations made by a southeast Queensland council candidate during a Facebook rant have been quashed by fact-checking body the Independent Council Election Observer.

A review into a Redland City Council candidate was recently undertaken by the Independent Council Election Observer. Picture: AAP/Richard Walker

ALLEGATIONS made by a southeast Queensland council candidate during a Facebook rant have been quashed by fact-checking body the Independent Council Election Observer (ICEO).

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ICEO representative, retired district court judge John Robertson, today announced that he would uphold a request for an information review made by incumbent Mayor Karen Williams regarding a Facebook post by Division 2 candidate Callen Sorensen-Karklis.

In the Facebook post (made to his personal page) Mr Sorensen-Karklis claimed that Tyrone Brown, the author of Facebook page Redlands Coast Bulletin was a employed by Redland City Council.

Redland City Council mayor Karen Williams. Picture: Elyse Heyn

Mr Sorensen-Karklis’ post had slammed a previous post on the Redlands Coast Bulletin Facebook page which shared a conspiracy video against indigenous child and bullying victim Quaden Bayles.

Mr Robertson said his team investigated the claims.

“My office made an information request to Cr Williams to which she replied on 26 February 2020,” Mr Robertson said in a statement.

“She attached a screenshot of another post on Mr Karklis’ personal Facebook page made on 24 February 2020 and alleges that contained further false and misleading information to the effect that Mr Brown “worked as a consultant on shoreline projects for Council in the past years”.

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“In her reply Cr Williams states: ‘To my knowledge, Tyrone Brown has never worked as a Council consultant for Shoreline or any other developments. He is not a town planner and has never been a staffer of the Mayor. He hasn’t done any contracting work for RCC. He was

Retired District Court Judge John Robertson has set up a service to monitor the behaviour of councillor candidates in the lead up to the local government election.

employed as a cadet building certifier 2003 to 2007 and was seconded to the building compliance team from 2007 to 2010’.”

Mr Robertson said his team found that on the original site where the conspiracy video (later shared by Redlands Coast Bulletin) had attracted 1,800 comments “a very great many of which were abusive and racist comments directed at the child”.

Mr Robertson said both of the Facebook posts made by Mr Sorensen-Karklis’ had been deleted by February 28.

“Similarly, the video of the indigenous child posted on the Redlands Coast Bulletin’s page was no longer visible,” Mr Robertson said.

Redland City Council candidate for Division 2 Callen Sorensen-Karklis.

Mr Robertson said his office contacted Mr Sorensen-Karklis on March 3 informing him part that: “As we understand her [Cr Williams’] request, by falsely alleging that Tyrone Brown is ‘on the payroll’ of the council you are by implication linking the whole council to this offensive material [the hateful comments linked to the video].

“Mr Karklis was given until 5 March 2020 to respond if he wished. He has not responded and he is not obliged to respond. I draw no adverse inference against him for that reason,” Mr Robertson said.

Mr Robertson said he was both satisfied the posts were indeed made by Mr Sorensen-Karklis and that Mr Brown was no longer employed by the council.

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