Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate blasts council watchdog over ‘ranga’ comment investigation

A defiant Mayor Tom Tate has vowed to continue calling his colleague Cr Joe Wilkinson a “ranga” despite being under investigation for improper conduct for doing so.

A defiant Mayor Tom Tate has vowed to continue calling his colleague Cr Joe Wilkinson a “ranga” despite being under investigation for improper conduct for doing so.

The mayor faces potential disciplinary action after the Office of independent Assessor (OIA) upheld a complaint the term “ranga” refers to an orang-utan, is associated with “discriminatory feelings” and Cr Tate’s use of it was “not funny” and “extremely derogatory”.

The complaint stemmed from Mr Tate commenting on Mr Wilkinson’s seat win in April, noting former councillor William Owen-Jones who had retired “was a ranga”.

“Lose one ranga, get another ranga. What the hell. That’s what the Gold Coast is all about,” he said at the time.

Mayor Tom Tate’s comments about Cr Joe Wilkinson have got him under investigation. Picture: Glenn Campbell

It came after he was asked about a social media post by Surfers Paradise MP John-Paul Langbroek welcoming Cr Wilkinson to council with “Congrats @Joe4division7 a ranga” followed by hashtags of “#diversity” and “#multiculturalism”.

Mr Tate, speaking on Wednesday after returning from the Paris Olympics, said he apologised to anyone offended by his joke but ridiculed the OIA for investigating him.

“That comment was directly related to Joe and he was not offended at all, he took it as tongue-in-cheek and if the person I am talking about, or to, is happy … I thought it would be fine,” he said.

John-Paul Langbroek's Instagram post about Joe Wilkinson welcoming him to politics.

“If other people who have red hair were offended then I apologise. When I was growing up I used it as a term of endearment or a bit of fun.

“Maybe the OIA should have a look at themselves, haven’t they got other investigations to do to determine whether they should pursue

“Here’s a tip, why doesn’t the OIA give Joe Wilkinson a call? He’s never had a call and he’s not upset. If we are one-on-one, I’m more than happy to still call him a ranga.

“Is the person that made the complaint a real ranga or not because it could come out of the bottle, could be strawberry blond? I don’t know because it is anonymous.”

The OIA wrote to the council to say it had assessed a complaint and confirmed it as a suspected breach of the councillor code of conduct.

Councillor Joe Wilkinson is confused by the decision and says he has no issue with the mayor’s comments. Picture: John Gass

It said Cr Tate was suspected of contravening behaviour standards requiring councillors to “treat people in a reasonable, just, respectful and non-discriminatory way”, to “treat fellow councillors, local government employees and members of the public with courtesy, honesty and fairness” and “have proper regard for other people’s rights, obligations, cultural differences, safety, health and welfare”.

Mr Langbroek said he would encourage LNP leader David Crisafulli to review legislation governing OIA if the LNP won October’s state election.

“It shows how quite literally crazy the world has become, with over-regulation costing council up to $30,000 and a total inconstant between what we expect of councils compared to MPs,” he said.

“Either the world has become far more woke in the past eight years or else we have a Labor government making ridiculous regulations and adding to ratepayer by stifling general language.

“I would encourage our leader to look at the legislation covering the OIA because this is a classic example of something young people would say is not an issue.”

Mr Wilkinson said the OIA probe was “just crazy”.

“The OIA’s resources should be going to things much more important than this – it just seems to be a complete waste of time and effort and money on something as trivial as this,” he said.

“The mayor says he didn’t know it was offensive and I certainly didn’t take it that way,”

“I’m a proud ranga. I referred to myself as a ‘ginger’ on my official councillor Facebook page only a little over a week ago.”