Council manager told colleague she used AI for company director course assignment, ICAC hears

A senior City of Parramatta staffer confided to a colleague that she’d committed plagiarism while completing the Australian Institute of Company Directors course and the council’s boss had covered it up, the ICAC has heard.

The allegations were made at a private session of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Tuesday hearing in Operation Navarra, the investigation into three executives at the council, the transcripts of which were released late on Wednesday.

John Crawford, the council’s former head of IT, told the commission that Roxanne Thornton – the group manager of the office of the Lord Mayor and CEO, and one of the so-called Pink Ladies at the council – told him she’d committed plagiarism “on two occasions” while completing the course.

“The first was using AI to submit … an assignment,” Crawford said, according to the commission’s transcript. “The second time was … where she took [council colleague James Smallson’s] assignment that he’d given her as a guide, and she then basically reworded a minority of it and submitted it.”

Council chief executive Gail Connolly, who is also under investigation, was aware of the matter and “had assisted in concealing that from becoming public knowledge,” he said.

Thornton, who is currently on leave from the council, is listed to appear as a witness at the commission on Thursday and Friday.

‘Heated argument’ over legal advice

Connolly had pushed for three separate pieces of legal advice to prove independent councillor Kellie Darley would not be allowed to join a council committee to review her performance as chief executive, Crawford told the commission.

In October 2024, the council had resolved to seek legal advice on Darley’s eligibility, Crawford said.

“There [were] three pieces of legal advice collected over a period of four months … The first one was issued under clear instruction from Ms Connolly, where she asked for [legal firm] Bartier Perry to be engaged to take the legal advice, and she reviewed the legal advice before it was sent.

“She was displeased with the first advice, so we went back for clarification on a second. She was displeased with the second, and we eventually landed on a third. The rough date, I believe, was around 15 or 16 February.”

Connolly then asked Crawford – who at the time was acting executive director of the finance division and overseeing the legal division – to present a report to the performance committee indicating the third piece of legal advice was “the only version of the legal advice,” Crawford said.

“We had a heated conversation around that, where I advised her that to do that would put me into a position where I would be lying to council, and I wasn’t comfortable … She told me I needed to find a way to answer the question of when asked if she had any involvement, it had to be no. I again raised my concerns that I was not comfortable to do that.”

CEO had ‘obsession’ with councillor

By the time Crawford left the council, he had “lost confidence in the moral compass” of the council, which he said was a “psychologically unsafe working environment” where one lived in a “constant state of fear” of retaliation by Connolly, he said.

“And not just from Ms Connolly, but from those around her as well, and that is one of the reasons why information leaking and paranoia was quite constant across the entire organisation, to be quite honest,” he said.

“In my opinion [the organisation] was paralysed. And it centred, realistically, in my opinion only, around Gail’s obsession with Councillor Darley.”

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