The findings against Gold Coast Mayor after tribunal rules on misconduct

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has been found guilty of misconduct after a complaint about his comments about another councillor made on Facebook and at full council. Here are the full findings.

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate. Picture: Jerad Williams

A TRIBUNAL found Mayor Tom Tate was guilty of misconduct after it ruled his comments about another councillor were not honest or impartial.

The Gold Coast Bulletin can reveal the full findings after a complaint by hinterland councillor Glenn Tozer was upheld by the Local Government Discipline and Remuneration Tribunal.

Writing on his Facebook page on February 28, Cr Tate accused Cr Tozer of not being transparent about a Master of Business Administration at a Gold Coast university, alleging ratepayers were funding most of it.

Gold Coast City Councillor Glenn Tozer.

The post included “as the pub testers would say ‘Stop the rorts!’” and “it’s another nose in the trough by a politician”.

But the tribunal, which interviewed the Mayor and Cr Tozer and also considered comments by Cr Tate at a full council meeting, found “the allegation of misconduct is sustained”.

“On the whole of evidence before it, the Tribunal is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Cr Tate’s conduct in placing Facebook posts was not honest and not impartial,” the tribunal’s finding said.

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Mayor Tom Tate at the Evandale council chambers. Picture Mike Batterham.

“His description of the conduct on those posts, his failure to inform the public that Cr Tozer’s claim was within the budget allocation advised to him as available and his failure to inform that it was approved by the CEO within the terms of Expenses policy, demonstrate this failure of honesty and impartiality,’’ it said.

“His invitation to the public to respond and the nature of the majority of those responses clearly show that at least some members of the public believed that Cr Tozer had engaged in wrongful, or even criminal activity.”

Mayor Tate must attend counselling “about his misconduct and how not to repeat it”, with a focus on “appropriate use of social media by councillors”.

He was also required to pay a fine of $1250 to the council.

Councillor Glenn Tozer at council. Pic by Richard Gosling

Cr Tozer said he sought advice from Mr Dickson, selected appropriate subjects and only claimed the relevant training budget allocated, which was made public on council documents.

“I made a complaint because I believed some of the comments made by the Mayor were not honest and led the public to believe things that were not true,” he said.

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“These dishonest comments caused me and my family distress. I felt as though I had previously overlooked that sort of behaviour and did not think ignoring it would make it stop, or set a good example for my children or my community.”

Chief operating officer Joe McCabe oversaw a preliminary assessment of the complaint, determined it was about inappropriate conduct and referred it to the Local Government

Mayor Tom Tate. Picture Mike Batterham

Department’s chief executive, who upgraded it to “misconduct”.

Cr Tate acknowledged the complaint had argued that he had not presented a balanced view of the issue in his mayoral minute at full council, in media interviews after the meeting and on a social media post in which he talked about stopping ratepayer expenditure.

“I included the full Channel 9 story on the social media post which included both sides of the story,” Cr Tate said.

“While most of the complaint elements were thrown out I still vehemently disagree with the tribunal’s findings.

“There are no appeal rights. However, two days after their decision on my matter, appeal rights have since been instituted in the recently in-acted amended legislation.

Councillor Tozer. Picture: Richard Gosling

“But I must accept the umpire’s decision that my public comments on the subject were too aggressive.

“Did I stop ratepayers’ funds being used for funding councillor Master of Business administration degrees? Guilty as charged.”

Cr Tozer yesterday said the Tribunal gave its decision on November 12 and no legislative changes were made two days later.