‘Cowards who sit behind keyboards’; councils say no more to abuse

Staff are resigning from jobs and using private council chamber exits to avoid increasing abusive behaviour, with two Tasmanian councils stating ‘enough is enough’.

Clarence City councillors are united in defending its staff against abusive behaviour from the public, announcing a community awareness campaign on Tuesday, July 9.

Council staff are reportedly avoiding public entrances to their chambers and being “bombarded” with cruel online messages.

Now, two southern Tasmanian councils are moving to stop the abuse in its tracks.

Clarence City Council announced on Tuesday it would implement a community awareness campaign addressing the increasingly poor conduct towards council staff and councillors.

This comes after unanimous council support for a motion tabled by councillor Wendy Kennedy at Clarence City’s last council meeting to implement a campaign.

Ms Kennedy said she had received abuse through various channels but chose not to elaborate after calling it “pretty bad”.

Clarence City councillors are united in defending its staff against abusive behaviour from the public, announcing a community awareness campaign on Tuesday, July 9.

“Imagine turning up to work when you’re constantly being bombarded with abusive forms of communication when you’re just trying to do your job,” she said.

“It’s just not fair, enough is enough.”

Ms Kennedy said the abuse faced by councils is deterring people from entering local government roles.

“Over the past year, we have seen a lot of people dropping out of local government roles because of this,” she said.

“We want to encourage people to get into local government, but you certainly won’t want to do this if every time you step outside your door you get abused.”

Clarence mayor Brendan Blomeley said the campaign was as simple as encouraging respect for others, calling the abusers “cowards who sit behind keyboards”.

“If you wouldn’t say it to your mother, your sister, your wife, your girlfriend, your brother, don’t say it to one of me or one of my colleagues or any of our staff, it’s just not on,” he said.

“No one should come to work and be subjected to this sort of treatment.”

Mr Blomeley said that staff had used a private entrance to council chambers to avoid conflict with the community.

City of Clarence Mayor Brendan Blomeley at Rosny. Picture: Chris Kidd

Huon Valley Council Mayor Sally Doyle. Picture: Chris Kidd

Deputy mayor Allison Ritchie stated females were also copping more frequent and more sexualised and threatening abuse.

Huon Valley Council are also standing up to threatening behaviour from the public, implementing a Managing Unacceptable Customer Behaviour Policy at its council meeting in late June.

Huon Valley Council mayor Sally Doyle said it wasn’t a matter of preventing all critical conversations, but ensuring respectful conversations and communications.

“We have this policy in place to prevent those serious instances of abuse towards staff and councillors and to ensure there is a standard set for how both we and the community go about communicating with each other,” she said.

The council has only recorded two instances of “serious” abuse where people have been barred from council offices, with Ms Doyle stating abuse has been personally directed towards her.

Council staff had also resigned over the abuse.

Huon Valley Council chambers Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

Local Government Association of Tasmania (LGAT) CEO Dion Lester said many councils are detailing an increase in poor behaviour as seen in a 2022 LGAT Workplace Health and Safety Review.

The review identified the health of elected representatives was significantly impacted by increasing levels of negative behaviour.

“Everyone has a right to undertake their work duties in a safe environment free from unwarranted abuse,” he said.

“It is critical for our communities to be able to engage in informed debate about issues that affect them to ensure local government elected members and officers are fully cognisant of the opinions and arguments of the people they represent.

“However, it is equally important that these debates occur in a manner that is respectful, non-threatening, and in a way that fosters all views to be heard, regardless of our own personal views.”

The LGAT is developing information and tools to help councils and communities understand the importance of informed and respectful debate.

Local government minister Nic Street said this behaviour was “never acceptable” and had released resources to support councils with “unreasonable customer conduct”.