THE City of Perth will lodge a complaint with the state’s Corruption and Crime Commission over the leaking of a “psycho-social risk report”, which found a “crisis” between council and staff, to the ABC.

At Tuesday’s annual electors meeting lord mayor Bruce Reynolds confirmed the CCC would be called in to investigate the leak, which CEO Michelle Reynolds said she’d had assurances hadn’t come from staff.

According to the ABC, the report found the relationship between the lord mayor and CEO was in a “conflict spiral”, while raised voices and hostile communications were predominantly directed at women.

Spiral

Mr Reynolds warned there were serious consequences for leakers.

“There’s punishments that includes imprisonment for releasing material that is confidential to the media, and fines up to $50,000.

“Obviously this would be referred to the CCC.”

The source of the leak led to an extraordinary scene when an unsuccessful candidate in last year’s elections aligned to Mr Reynold’s faction winked pointedly at councillor Raj Doshi after asking whether the City had processes to identify the culprit.

“What accountability measures apply under the code of conduct or relevant legislation if a councillor, employee or associated party is found to have improperly disclosed confidential information,” Elle Hashimi asked.

Cr Doshi, who’s publicly spoken about “not feeling okay” about the current culture at the City, confirmed to the Chook she was the target of the wink, but denied being behind the leak.

After opening the meeting, attended by former Kwinana mayor Carol Reynolds as a monitor for new local government inspector Tony Brown (who we accidentally referred to last time as Tony Burke), Mr Reynolds addressed the report and the leak as the “elephant in the room”.

He denied seeing intimidation of staff or threatening behaviour.

“We were advised clearly that the assessment has its limitations, as the independent consultant explained to us, the purpose of the review was not to determine whether something did or did not take place, but is to record how people felt in certain situations and make recommendations accordingly,” he said.

“The question asked is not who is behaving badly, but what features of work design allow or create these hazards.

“What I’ve sen is the occasional email that could be drafted better.

“Feelings should always be taken seriously, but where behaviour is alleged and evidenced, the proper course is clear process, formal reporting and due process, not leaks, not insinuation, not trial by media.”

Mr Reynolds said the issue was distracting people from the “progress” of the city, with a palpable energy in the streets and cafes.

Prior to the meeting Mr Reynolds rejected a motion of no confidence which had originally been put forward by Councillor Catherine Lezer’s husband Kevin McIsaac, who later asked for the mover to be changed to local advocate John Morrison on behalf of a group calling themselves the “Perth Alliance”.

Motion barred

The original motion, which also called on Mr Reynolds to immediately resign, was initially submitted to the City on January 23, with the requested change of mover followed up the following day.

But less than an hour before the AGM, the City’s governance team alerted Dr McIsaac that the lord mayor wouldn’t allow it to be raised.

“No reasons have been provided by the lord mayor,” the response said.

Dr McIsaac said that many in the crowd had attended in anticipation of the motion.

“I believe the lord mayor’s actions have deprived the electors their legislative opportunity to express their discontent,” he said.

by STEVE GRANT