Gold Coast city councillors vote on Office of Independent Assessor legal bills

Some Gold Coast councillors are in fear of having to pay legal fees from conduct battles. Here’s what they’ve decided to do about it.

Councillor Brooke Patterson and her fellow councillors have been chewing over potential wallet hits in future from watchdogs rulings. Picture Glenn Hampson

A super majority of councillors are backing Mayor Tom Tate to oppose a policy change which could see them pay legal bills if found guilty of conduct breaches by a state watchdog.

The Local Government Act provides councils with the power to recover some or all of the costs of a conduct breach investigation.

However, a new policy had both the Mayor and councillors concerned it would put them in position to assign costs to colleagues when they had been investigated. Councillors at the full Gold Coast Council on Tuesday debated the City’s new investigation policy, which outlined how council would deal with suspected conduct breaches of councillors referred to the Office of the Independent Assessor (OIA).

The Bulletin has obtained an email sent by the Mayor warning councillors about his concerns with the some clauses in the revised policy, not included in the state government’s examples provided to guide local governments.

Councillor Brooke Patterson and Mayor Tom Tate.

He said an added clause from council officers “puts councillors at potential significant financial risk” should they choose to fight allegations brought against them by the OIA.

“The OIA have a clear record of bringing complaints against councillors for a range of very minor matters,” Mr Tate wrote.

“Councillors have every right to defend their reputation when these sorts of complaints are made.

“But if there is uncertainty over the coverage of costs, many councillors may choose to simply accept what they consider an unfair ruling because they are concerned about the potential financial implications.”

The Mayor during debate told councillors he was concerned some “not well off” would “curtail their comments to the media” for fear of future legal costs.

He was backed by all councillors apart from Peter Young who abstained from voting.

Councillor Brooke Patterson asked council to revert to the state’s policy on several clauses, but failed to get support.

Colleague Glenn Tozer said he struggled to see the differences.

Councillor Brooke Patterson. Picture: Glenn Hampson

CEO Tim Baker said there was no intent to “reduce natural justice overall” for councillors and the new policy was framed to give “the feel of City of Gold Coast policies”.

Mr Tate in his email listed what he considered “examples of the OIA’s overzealousness” including:

* The Barcaldine Mayor being found to have a case to answer for questioning QLD Health’s rollout of Covid vaccines.

* The recent decision that Mr Tate had a case to answer for using the description “ranga” to refer to Councillor Joe Wilkinson, even though he said he was not offended by the term.

* Previous OIA decisions to pursue matters against councillors for using a word or phrase out of place at a media conference – e.g. misusing the word “frivolous”.

“Councillors I believe that we should all have the right to defend ourselves against OIA charges, where we feel we have been unfairly targeted, without the concern that if the decision goes the wrong way we may be up for thousands of dollars in costs,” he wrote.

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Originally published as Gold Coast city councillors vote on Office of Independent Assessor legal bills