OIA clears Bundaberg councillors of 13 more complaints

Complaints have been flying thick and fast at Bundaberg Regional Council with the state’s watchdog forced to deal with 13 misconduct allegations so far this year.

Allegations a Bundaberg region councillor broke the council’s media policy by speaking with journalists without authorisation have been thrown out by the state’s council corruption watchdog.

Allegations a councillor broke local and state rules by speaking to the media without approval were among more than a dozen complaints about Bundaberg’s elected representatives thrown out by the state’s council watchdog this year.

Since the start of 2021 the Office of the Independent Assessor has been forced to rule on 13 complaints about Bundaberg councillors.

It declined to pursue further investigations into any of them.

In the most recent case, an unnamed councillor was accused of breaching the council’s media conduct policy by speaking to a journalist “without authorisation”.

They were accused of breaching the state’s councillor code of conduct by publicly undermining the CEO and attempting to direct him and breaching the trust placed in them as an elected official “by failing to be impartial in their conduct towards a council officer”.

The OIA tossed the complaint out saying it did not raise a reasonable suspicion of misconduct.

The State’s Office of the Independent Assessor has dismissed 13 complaints against Bundaberg councillors so far this year.

Instead, it found the councillor’s comments amounted to “reasonable questions about a governance matter”.

Other councillors had raised similar questions, the OIA said.

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Another complaint, made in April, alleged a councillor had tried “to poach senior staff from another like business in Bundaberg”.

The OIA threw this complaint out saying the alleged conduct did not occur as part of the councillor’s duties but instead related to the running of their personal business and fell outside the Local Government Act.

At the start of the year assessor was asked to look into a spat between two unnamed councillors following a January phone call between them.

Accusations an unnamed Bundaberg councillor publicly undermined CEO Steve Johnston in the media were thrown out by the Independent Assessor on grounds the councillor was asking reasonable questions about a governance matter.

Two complaints were lodged: an accusation one councillor displayed “inappropriate” behaviour when approached following the call and a counter accusation that that complaint was nothing more than a false accusation intended to stifle the councillor from carrying out their duties.

The OIA dismissed the complaints due to conflicting accounts and a lack of independent witnesses to support either version.

It was not the only back-of-house matter to land on the OIA’s lap.

In February an unidentified councillor was accused of potentially breaching legislative confidentiality by talking to two other councillors about staffing matters and investigations by other agencies.

The OIA dismissed the complaint as the conversation in question had been private, not public.

Originally published as OIA clears Bundaberg councillors of 13 more complaints