Victorian MPs vote to remove mayor Darryn Lyons, Geelong council amid bullying claims

UPDATE: CELEBRITY mayor Darryn Lyons has been unmasked as a bully who regularly swore at staff in emotional tirades while at the helm of a dysfunctional Geelong council.

Darryn Lyons Geelong Mayor

CELEBRITY mayor Darryn Lyons has been unmasked as a bully who regularly swore at staff in emotional tirades while at the helm of a dysfunctional Geelong council.

A litany of foul-mouthed rants, including at employees of a local business and council leaders, helped seal the former paparazzi king’s fate.

The state government backed an independent commission’s recommendation that the whole council be sacked.

RULE: Cocky mayor a dead parrot talking

Laws to get rid of the councillors and to install administrators until 2020 passed the Legislative Assembly, and will now be debated in the Legislative Council.

The commission’s review says Cr Lyons, who was elected by popular vote in 2013, regularly sprayed staff with expletives, including asking: “Are they f---ing dumb?”

On one occasion he suggested staff should be “picking up dog s---”.

He also slammed their event scheduling, saying: “F--- me, I’m the mayor. I don’t need to be meeting with someone one week and then meeting with them the next.”

Cr Lyons outside his home. Picture: Jay Town

Cr Lyons said he was not a “wilting begonia”. Picture: Jay Town

community satisfaction has gone up in recent years, Cr Lyons says. Picture: Jay Town

Cr Lyons said he was not a “wilting begonia”, but he did not believe the council was dysfunctional and deserving of dismissal.

“How can it be, when a local government community satisfaction survey has gone up from 55 to 69, and the state average is 53?” he said.

“Shutting down democracy is not good for Geelong.”

DARRYN LYONS AND GEELONG COUNCIL FACING SACK

The report concluded that Cr Lyons’s “bullying treatment of staff in his own office has damaged their health and wellbeing, resulting in the resignation of one staff member and the relocation of another”.

But the report also says Cr Lyons was far from alone in criticising staff, and councillors and administrative staff “failed to support both the current mayor and his predecessor”.

Misbehaviour by councillors, who are not named individually, included an employee being told to do as a councillor wanted or be sent to a “dark place she would not like”.

Reminiscing. Picture: Jay Town

Cr Lyons in his Geelong home. Picture: Jay Town

And when a pregnant woman asked that a chemicals shed be ventilated, her manager replied: “Ventilation, I will give you f---ing ventilation,” and then “took to the walls of the shed with an axe”.

The commission of inquiry was ordered by the Labor government last year after a damning workplace culture review by former sex discrimination commissioner Susan Halliday.

But several Coalition MPs said they were worried about political interference in the process, given Cr Lyons’ links to the Liberal Party.

READ THE FULL REPORT

Opposition leader Matthew Guy accused the government of a “political stitch-up”, suggesting Cr Lyons could have been seen as an “electoral threat” to federal Corio MP Richard Marles.

But local government minister Natalie Hutchins said the report spoke for itself, and the “people of Geelong have been waiting long enough for good governance”.

The government forced through a vote on a Bill to sack the council within hours of the report being tabled.

Geelong City Council Chambers.

However, it does not command a majority in the Legislative Council, meaning it now will have to negotiate with the opposition, Greens, and crossbench MPs.

Labor will need either the Coalition, or the Greens and two micro-party MPs, to get its Bill through.

But the length of time Geelong residents would be without elected local government representatives is a key sticking point.

The Coalition and the Greens have reservations about Labor’s push to install administrators until 2020, as well as its push to change the way councillors are elected.

Municipal Association of Victoria president Bill McArthur said “dismantling a democratically elected government until 2020 will never be the preferred solution”.

Prominent Geelong businessman Frank Costa said Cr Lyons had “put Geelong on the map”, but could not lead a unified council.

An overhaul should “go a lot deeper than just getting rid of one lot of councillors and putting in another”, he said.

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