Dubbo Mayor Ben Shields named in code of conduct complaints days before medical episode
Mayor Ben Shields, who was named in two complaints, is currently fighting for life while his council is set for an extraordinary showdown today.
NSW
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Bitter political tensions are festering inside Dubbo Regional Council, which has a mayor currently fighting for life and the local state MP calling for an independent inquiry in the lead-up to an extraordinary council showdown set for tonight.
Mayor Ben Shields, 40, was found unconscious at his home on April 1 and taken to hospital, where he was placed on life support.
He was flown to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney last Friday to undergo emergency surgery.
Mr Shields remains at RPA in a critical but stable condition.
The other nine councillors on the council — six of whom last month called for Cr Shields to resign — will tonight face off at an extraordinary council meeting in a bid to deal with the unusual circumstances.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that on March 29 — the same day calls for him to resign were made public — two code of conduct complaints about Mr Shields were made to Dubbo Regional Council’s CEO.
Before his life-threatening incident, Mr Shields had denounced the claims made against him as “nonsense”.
The first of two complaints is understood to have related to his interactions with Taronga Western Plains Zoo CEO Steve Hinks at a meeting in 2018.
Under the Zoological Parks Board Act, the board of Taronga Zoo must have a representative from both the Mosman and Dubbo areas — where its two zoos are located. The board seat is a paid position and often allocated to members of the two local councils.
The letter of complaint referenced a meeting between Mr Hinks and Mr Shields and questioned whether or not the council’s code of conduct had been breached by Mr Shields’ insistence that he was granted a board position.
Crucially at that time, a major $7m pipeline was being proposed to deliver much needed water to the zoo in the middle of the drought.
According to the complaint, former Dubbo Regional Council CEO Michael McMahon — who was also in attendance at the meeting — later offered an apology to Mr Hinks over Mr Shields’ comments.
“We understand you (Mr McMahon) apologised to the zoo official involved,” the complaint said.
Mr McMahon refused to comment when contacted.
A spokesperson for Taronga Zoo confirmed Mr Shields was appointed to the board. His term began on April 13 last year and is due to end today.
The second complaint filed on the same day related to a conversation between Mr Shields and a local real estate agent, whose company had won several council tenders.
Mr Shields allegedly criticised the man over his support for another councillor’s proposal for a report into housing in the local area.
The complaint states the real estate agent was left “upset (and) shaken” and later called other councillors to seek assurances his business would not be affected.
Mr Shields was first elected to local council in 1999 when he was just 18 years old and still at high school.
In 2017 he was named Dubbo Regional Council’s first mayor, following the merger of Dubbo City Council and Wellington Council.
But on March 29, six local councillors called for Mr Shields to resign as mayor.
In a letter handed to then CEO Mr McMahon — who resigned on April 1 — the councillors called an extraordinary council meeting.
Following the calls for his resignation, Mr Shields held a press conference where he claimed he had done nothing illegal.
Another criticism of Cr Shields by his fellow councillors centres on his handling of a proposed $30m Bunnings development on an old RAAF base in the centre of Dubbo.
“There’s a view afoot, largely due to actions by the mayor in doing a press conference with the developer on the day the DA was lodged, that council has already approved the Bunnings at the RAAF site,” Cr Stephen Lawrence told a local radio station.
NSW Police confirmed it had also received formal complaints, which are currently being “assessed by detectives”.
“On Tuesday, 6 April 2021, officers from Orana Mid-Western Police District received an email detailing a number of allegations against a 40-year-old man,” a NSW Police spokesperson said.
The tension between local councillors has led Dubbo State MP Dugald Saunders to call for an independent investigation into Dubbo Regional Council.
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