Another code of conduct complaint has been upheld against Louise Elliot

A Hobart City Councillor has once again been reprimanded for her social media activity. Here’s what she did.

Louise Elliot and Ryan Posselt. Images: The Mercury.

Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliot treated unfairly and offended her council colleague Ryan Posselt, through her social media activity, which led to him and his family receiving threats online, a code of conduct panel has found.

In a newly published decision, Ms Elliot has been sanctioned for comments made by others on her Facebook page and on social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).

Mr Posselt made the complaint a year ago, claiming he’d been harassed when Ms Elliot reposted old tweets from months before, including one which labelled him “misogynistic”.

Mr Posselt told the panel he believed Ms Elliot’s reposting old comments was a deliberate act to draw “derogatory” comments about him from her followers.

He said following her repost he received 10-20,000 notifications, though not all were negative.

He also said she had failed to moderate comments on her Facebook page, including one which referred to him as “full of s …. t and a stupid excuse for a human”.

City of Hobart councillor Ryan Posselt will run for Labor in the seat of Clark at the next state election. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

“Cr Elliot said that she was unaware of the Facebook posts … until she received the complaint documentation,” the panel said.

“The Panel noted that Cr Posselt had emailed her on 17 July 2023 showing a copy of a comment by Mr Lack and asking her to remove the post.”

The panel found she was aware but deliberately left the comment up.

In response to the complaint, Ms Elliot told the panel Mr Posselt was being “precious” and “hypersensitive”.

She said as public figures, they should both accept that they would face both positive and negative comments and that by requesting certain comments be removed, Mr Posselt was trying to “micromanage” opinions about him.

Ms Elliot said she could not control what was posted on her social media, but admitted it was within her power to remove comments on her Facebook page.

City of Hobart Councillor Louise Elliot. Picture: Chris Kidd

The panel found Ms Elliot breached three parts of the code of conduct: that a councillor must treat all people fairly, that they must not cause any reasonable person offence or embarrassment and that councillors must not bully or harass any person.

“When re-posting the tweets, which essentially amounted to tweeting the content herself, Cr Elliot was aware that they were likely to draw negative comments in relation to Cr Posselt,” the panel said.

“Cr Elliot’s ongoing publishing of negative content about Cr Posselt, especially the re-tweeting of previous tweets, and allowing offensive material to remain on her Facebook page, had the effect of harassing Cr Posselt.

“Cr Elliot deliberately set out to cause offence and encourage more negative comment about Cr Posselt.

“Cr Elliot did not provide a satisfactory explanation for her behaviour by refusing to take down Facebook posts on her Facebook page by third parties that Cr Posselt advised her were offensive to him and had triggered threats to him and his family.”

Ms Elliot is required to undergo a training course about social media.

It’s not the first time Ms Elliot has been found to have breached the code through her social media activity, in July she was cautioned for facilitating “offensive” comments and failing to moderate them. and last monthshe was sanctioned over posts made on Facebook, which were found to be disrespectful.

Originally published as Another code of conduct complaint has been upheld against Louise Elliot