Ex-Labor MP Belinda Neal takes Amnesty to court over her ousting from board seat

Belinda Neal is taking the legal action after she was voted off the national board of the human rights organisation.

Belinda Neal.

Former federal Labor MP Belinda Neal has taken Amnesty Inter­national Australia to court after she was voted off the national board of the human rights organisation during an extraordinary general meeting.

Ms Neal, best known for “Iguana­gate”, was relentless in her attempts to become a director at AIA, running five times for the position before she was successful.

The Australian understands she is now taking extraordinary steps to remain on the board after she was kicked off, lodging a second application against the decision in the Supreme Court of NSW.

The hard-fought directorship came into jeopardy when she became a Labor councillor at Central Coast Council in September, because the AIA board charter states that members cannot be elected or appointed to top-level administrative and policymaking systems of Australia.

“There is a clear conflict between Ms Neal holding an elected political office as a member of the Australian Labor Party and the expressly apolitical, non-partisan nature and objective of the AIA,” the organisation’s legal team wrote in documents submitted to the court.

AIA members alerted leadership to her council candidacy, and brought forward the extraordinary general meeting to remove her on November 14.

She filed an injunction with the Supreme Court ahead of the meeting to stop AIA members voting to remove her as director, which was unsuccessful.

AIA called Ms Neal’s argument “a very weak one”, and The Australian understands the court concluded that voting members should have the authority to make the decision.

Ms Neal addressed members at the Nov­ember 14 meeting about why she shouldn’t be expelled but was voted off the board near unanimously.

She has now filed a second injunction with the court, contesting that there is a “conflict of interest” in being both a councillor and on the board of AIA. That application is yet to be determined.

Ms Neal is best known for an ­altercation she had as a Labor MP with staff at a Gosford waterfront bar called Iguana Joes in 2008. After the incident, Ms Neal ­denied claims by some Iguana staff that she had verbally abused them or said “Don’t you know who I am?”

In 2017, she was expelled from the Labor Party over allegations of branch-stacking in the race for preselection in Gosford, which Ms Neal consistently denied.

In July this year, she battled her way back from party expulsion when she was named a life member at the NSW ALP conference.

Ms Neal successfully revived her political career by scoring the winnable council seat on Central Coast Council in September.

On Thursday, she told The Australian it was not appropriate to comment, given the legal action. The matter will return to the Supreme Court on Friday for a directions hearing.