The Sydney council spending $300,000 on councillors complaining about each other

Liverpool councillors have racked up dozens of code of conduct complaints within months amid simmering tensions between mayor Ned Mannoun and his political opponent, Peter Ristevski, months before the start of an inquiry scrutinising serious allegations of misconduct at the council.

The council urged the NSW Office of Local Government to intervene after a report found staff had received 67 complaints about councillors’ conduct since September – more than a dozen times the number of complaints in all of 2023-24. The report from council staff argued the rise in complaints was getting in the way of council business, at an estimated cost to ratepayers of more than $340,000.

Liverpool mayor Ned Mannoun on Friday.Credit: Steven Siewert

The move prompted a strong rebuke from the OLG, which lashed the council’s “inappropriate” decision to publish the figures, arguing it “weaponises” the code of conduct complaint process.

Hearings for the public inquiry into the council are due to start in June after a report last year detailed a list of serious allegations, which NSW Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig described as “the worst I’ve seen of any council” during a budget estimates hearing last year.

The complaints coincide with rising hostilities between Mannoun, a Liberal, and Ristevski, once Mannoun’s accountant and a former councillor who returned as an independent at the last election.

Independent councillor Peter Ristevski was formerly Mannoun’s accountant. Credit: louise kennerley

The pair has a long history of animosity. In December, Mannoun lost a defamation lawsuit he launched against Ristevski over comments on the Liverpool Council Shenanigans Facebook page in 2022 that referred to Mannoun as a “crim” and a “grub”. The NSW District Court found Mannoun had not satisfied a mandatory requirement to show the comment had caused serious harm to his reputation.

In February, Mannoun and Liberal councillors walked out of a council meeting after they lost a motion to have an item about a work, health and safety matter debated in a confidential session. The matter did not end up being debated and Mannoun did not return.

Ristevski also moved a motion, which was also not debated, at a March meeting seeking advice from Hoenig about whether Mannoun should remain as spokesperson for the council during the public inquiry.

Mannoun was absent from the full meeting of council on March 26, prompting Ristevski to remark to the Herald this week that the mayor had “basically abandoned” the council.

Mannoun, who attended council events including citizenship ceremonies last week, said he had missed the March 26 meeting because it was the last few days of Ramadan and he wasn’t feeling well.

“I wouldn’t be the first mayor to miss a meeting,” he said.

Ristevski and Mannoun declined to comment on the code of conduct complaints. Mannoun said on Friday the “overwhelming majority of councillors work within the code of conduct framework”.

The report to the council’s March meeting said there had been 67 code of conduct complaints against councillors since September 1, shortly before the new council was elected, compared to five in 2023-24. The council had averaged four or five complaints each year in the five years prior.

Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig said allegations at Liverpool Council were “the worst I’ve seen”.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

“The numbers of code of conduct complaints received to date in 2024-25 are much higher than in previous years. They already represent an order of magnitude increase compared to the entirety of the previous period,” general counsel David Galpin said in the report.

Fourteen of the complaints were under investigation, 24 had been referred to external reviewers and 23 were being assessed by the governance team. Four were declined.

The report did not name which councillors were the subject of complaints, nor whether any breaches had been found. It would be likely to take council staff until July to process them, at an estimated cost of $346,386.

A council spokesman said it took alleged breaches of the code of conduct seriously, and they were treated in accordance with the requirements of the Local Government Act.

The report said the council had referred the current complaints to the Office of Local Government and asked the agency to investigate them due to concerns they were imposing an “undue and disproportionate cost burden” on staff and impeding the effective functioning of the council.

An Office of Local Government spokeswoman said the agency would “not be stepping in to pick up matters that Liverpool Council should be managing as required under the Local Government Act”.

The Minns government last year announced a public inquiry into the council, following a damning Office of Local Government investigation which found evidence of widespread dysfunction in staffing, financial management, development assessments and regulatory probity.

Barrister Ross Glover was appointed to lead the inquiry.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.