Jennifer Pittorino
Two Hobsons Bay councillors have been found guilty of misconduct after internal arbitration processes.
Documents tabled at a council meeting on Tuesday, February 13, revealed two separate internal arbitration processes have been carried out in recent months.
Both processes involved councillors Daria Kellander and Tony Briffa, with both alleging the other had committed misconduct.
The council is required to table the reports detailing the arbiter’s decision and statement of reasons.
The report revealed that on May 29, Cr Kellander sought a finding of misconduct against Cr Briffa relating to two allegations on March 19 and May 9.
The application alleged that Cr Briffa issued a press release as mayor which “falsely targeted Western Metropolitan MP Moira Deeming for being a signatory to a petition by labelling Mrs Deeming ‘anti trans’”.
Cr Kellander also accused Cr Briffa of intentionally misgendering Mrs Deeming by referring to her by the pronouns “they-their” rather than “she-her”.
Cr Kellander also accused Cr Briffa of issuing a tweet “targeting” Mrs Deeming. The tweet allegedly labelled Mrs Deeming a leader of a “violent rally” and jointly as a “trans-queer hater, neo-Nazi”.
Arbiter Jo-Anne Mazzeo made a finding of misconduct against Cr Briffa in two of the three allegations.
Ms Mazzeo decided not to issue a sanction to Cr Briffa noting the tension between Cr Briffa and Cr Kellander.
“There is a clear tension between the applicant and the respondent which, in the view of the arbiter, appears to have contributed to the application being made in relation to this matter.”
Tension remained clear at the February 13 council meeting as Cr Kellander and Cr Briffa fell into heated debate.
Documents revealed the second misconduct application was lodged on July 4.
This time the applicant was Cr Briffa and the respondent was Cr Kellander.
The application alleged that Cr Kellander “portrayed the council negatively, brought discredit upon the council and misled the community”, in a number of personal social media posts. More than ten posts were listed in the application.
Arbiter Simon Heath determined that Cr Kellander breached clauses on two posts, finding misconduct against her.
In one post in June, Cr Briffa alleges that Cr Kellander displayed “abusive and disrespectful behaviour” towards the chief executive in a Facebook post on June 15, in which she had “publicly and falsely targeted the chief executive as a ‘liar’ in relation to the recording of council meetings.
Mr Heath determined that Cr Kellander failed to comply with the standards of conduct in the June post finding misconduct against her.
Mr Heath directed that Cr Kellander make a written apology to the Hobsons Bay council chief executive Aaron Van-Egmond on her Facebook page.
He also noted that it was unclear from the application what misconduct is alleged to have occurred on some of the other dates listed by Cr Briffa.
On February 14, Cr Kellander posted her apology letter to Facebook, addressed to Mr Van-Egmond.
The letter lists the allegations against Cr Kellander and details the June 15 post which insinuated the chief executive edited a council meeting recording.
“I note the mayor or chief executive may determine in their sole discretion not to upload all or part of any meeting recording or publish a recording,” the post read.
