Adelaide City Council has 21 code of conduct complaints this term, costing $130k to investigate
Nasty emails? Hostile comments? City ratepayers have forked out $132,000 in the past four years to investigate complaints about elected members breaching the the code of conduct.
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City ratepayers have forked out more than $130,000 to investigate badly behaving elected members this term.
Adelaide City Council received 21 code of conduct complaints between 2018-22, nine of which were substantiated.
The council has spent about $132,000 on external lawyers to investigate the matters.
The most recent breach was by Cr Jessy Khera, which was detailed in a 22-page report by law firm MinterEllison in last month’s council papers.
Cr Khera was found to have breached the code by failing to show respect to Cr Anne Moran during an email exchange in November last year.
One particular comment was Cr Khera alleging that Cr Moran and Cr Phillip Martin fomented “misogyny against the Lord Mayor”.
The report stated Cr Khera genuinely believed it was misogynistic conduct, however raising the matter in an accusatory and threatening manner was not the appropriate way to deal with it.
A second comment by Cr Khera saying: “I shan’t be blocking you Anne. I like to keep tabs” was found to be “somewhat intimidatory”.
The heavily-redacted report found the email exchange was one small component of a broader relationship breakdown between the councillors.
“We acknowledge that Cr Khera’s comments were made against a lengthy history of dysfunction and a significantly deteriorated relationship,” the report stated.
“We also acknowledge that the comments of Cr Khera may even be trivial and immaterial. Nonetheless, the code imposes obligations and standards on all councillors which must be upheld.”
The report recommended the council take no further action and an apology was not warranted.
A complaint about Cr Khera’s behaviour during a brief interaction with Cr Moran at special council meeting a day before the email exchange was not upheld.
“This was just yet another waste of ratepayers’ money,” Cr Khera told The Advertiser.
He is not seeking re-election.
Originally published as Adelaide City Council has 21 code of conduct complaints this term, costing $130k to investigate
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