South Perth mayor to apologise over Facebook posts

City of South Perth mayor Greg Milner will be required to publicly apologise for sharing an article discrediting the city’s financial management to social media, after losing an appeal in the State Administrative Tribunal.

Outgoing City of South Perth mayor Sue Doherty lodged a complaint against Mr Milner with WA’s Local Government Standards Panel in 2019 after he shared the article published by a media organisation to his personal Facebook page and three other South Perth community pages during the local government elections.

Ms Doherty alleged the conduct constituted a breach of the Local Government Regulations 2007, because the article, according to Ms Doherty, conveyed the ‘misleading impression' that the city was going broke and that its finances had not been ‘well or properly managed'. 

Further, Ms Doherty alleged the mayor knew the article contained misinformation about the city's finances, and cast doubt over the competence of the city, its staff and elected members.

In September 2020, the panel found that by publishing the article, Mr Milner had breached regulations by making an improper use of his position as a councillor to cause detriment to the city, the council and Ms Doherty.

The panel argued Mr Milner had an obligation to ensure the statements published were substantially true and said he would have been aware that the city’s financial health was a complex issue.

But two months later, Mr Milner sought a review of the decision by the state’s Administrative Tribunal, asking for the finding to be set aside and the sanction removed.

Mr Milner’s lawyers submitted that the article was open to subjective analysis and was opinion journalism that dealt with a range of matters relevant to the city's affairs which extended beyond just financial matters.

But Tribunal member Rosetta Petrucci found as an elected councillor, the community would have assumed the mayor had a high level of knowledge about the city, including its finances, and would have trusted the article’s contents to be fact.

In a decision handed down today, Ms Petrucci found that while a public apology was appropriate, she did not believe that the mayor should be required to undertake council training.

The tribunal affirmed the decision of the panel requiring a public apology, but amended the sanction to remove the need for training.