What you need to know
Welcome to day 23 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s public inquiry into the City of Parramatta’s former chief executive Gail Connolly and other staff Roxanne Thornton and Angela Jones-Blayney.
Under Operation Navarra, the ICAC is investigating whether council staff members, central among them Connolly, misused public funds by having staff leave through deeds of release (agreements made between staff and the council upon a departure), subverted the council’s recruitment and other processes, disclosed confidential information to third parties, and spied on staff and a councillor.
Over 22 days, the inquiry has heard from 18 witnesses – all current or former staff at the council – who have been asked about the allegations. Connolly, the subject of most of the allegations, is expected to be the final witness and is on her sixth day of giving evidence.
Yesterday, on her fifth and longest day as a witness, Connolly was questioned about deleted text messages and photographs, weekends away with friends and colleagues, and whether she used the death of a family’s pet rabbit to her advantage.
Watch: Key exchange between Connolly and Moses
Here’s a key exchange Moses, acting on behalf of the City of Parramatta, and Gail Connolly had during his cross-examination today.
He is asking her about her approach to confidentiality – and why she told her friends about a redundancy and not elected officials.
‘No’: Connolly says she didn’t declare friendship conflict
After a long exchange, Connolly says “I’ll say no” in response to Moses’ question about whether she had declared a conflict of interest to the council in relation to her friendship with Angela Jones-Blayney before she was employed.
That ends the hearing for the day. Arthur Moses SC, representing the council, will return for about 30 minutes of cross-examination. Lawyers for Roxanne Thornton, also under investigation by the ICAC, have applied to cross-examine, Hatzistergos says.
“And then, of course, re-examination,” he adds.
‘Do you know what you did was forgery?’
Moses is asking Connolly about the evidence that she “applied” the witness signature of Roxanne Thornton in her employment contract.
He says she has changed her evidence about the way she signed the contract multiple times. Earlier, Connolly had said she’d written it herself, and then added that she had traced over it.
“See, this is the position,” Moses says. “When you were confronted with the implausibility of your earlier evidence, you then came up with another explanation, trying to escape what you had been in effect proven to be, by counsel assisting, which was lying.”
“That’s not correct,” Connolly says. “When I realised the disconnect between what was being asked of me and the explanation I’d previously given, I understood that there was a disconnect between what I was saying and counsel assisting had been interpreting it.”
Moses asks: “Do you know what you did was forgery?”
“My understanding was it was not a document that required a wet signature, and it could be applied by a third party at that time and had been a practice that had been employed on occasion before. At no time did I think it was forgery.”
We’ve just got confirmation that the hearing will end at 4.30pm today – and return tomorrow morning.
Connolly has done ‘welfare checks’ on ICAC accused since hearing commenced
Arthur Moses asks Connolly when she last spoke with Roxanne Thornton, a fellow Pink Lady under investigation by the ICAC.
Connolly: “I can’t recall.”
Moses: “Was it yesterday?”
Connolly: “No.”
Moses: “When was the last time? Has it been since this hearing commenced?”
Connolly accused of corrupt conduct over conflict of interest disclosure
Arthur Moses SC, on behalf of the council, is accusing Connolly of corrupt conduct because of her failure to declare a conflict of interest.
He is taking her through probity guidelines which he has just put in front of her.
The guidelines, he says, say a “deliberate failure to declare a conflict of interest [are] an integrity offense and corrupt conduct as conduct within ICAC’s jurisdiction”.
“I can’t see it but I’ll accept that it says it somewhere in there,” Connolly says.
He is now referring to Connolly’s evidence from earlier in the hearing about the findings of Operation Dasha, the ICAC’s investigation into recruitment processes at the former Canterbury Council.
In that operation, the ICAC found serious corrupt conduct in the recruitment of a senior staffer, including the finding that the staffer was provided with interview questions in advance.
Connolly says she is not familiar with the specific finding, but agrees that, generally, a chief executive should not allow interview questions to be provided to job candidates in advance.
‘You made yourself the judge’
“You’re not willing to accept the proposition that you ultimately are accountable to the councillors. They are not accountable to you,” Moses says. “You refuse to understand that, don’t you?”
“Every CEO or general manager is accountable to the council,” Connolly replies. “However, they have to be very careful about the distribution of information, and there is some information in various acts that the councillors are not entitled to receive.”
“What I want to suggest to you is this,” Moses says. “There is no provision of the Local Government Act that makes a council’s entitlement to information conditional on the general manager trusting them to keep it confidential. You accept that?
“Yes, I accept that,” Connolly says.
“You made yourself the judge of what the body that oversaw you was allowed to know about your own conduct.”
Moses digs into Supreme Court finding
Moses is now referring to independent councillor Kellie Darley’s case against the City of Parramatta council, which found Connolly inappropriately withheld documents from councillors about a code of conduct complaint, that led to them censuring her.
“The Supreme Court found that you, as your manager, withheld from the councillors [documents about Darley] and imposed on councillor Darley a demand that she personally indemnify you before you would release them.”
“You withheld from councillors information that the law required you to give.”
Connolly replies: “I thought I was complying with legal advice and the law.”
After back and forth, Moses says: “Every time you’re confronted with something, you basically try to provide an explanation rather than confronting [the] questions.”
Objection to cross-examination
Moses, on behalf of the council, has presented Connolly with a folder of evidence.
Connolly’s lawyer is objecting to some of it, including a transcript of a councillor induction that Connolly ran in late 2024. He says his team has been trying to get a copy of this transcript for a long time.
“This is grave prejudice to now present this in this fashion,” Andrew Pickles tells the commission.
“I don’t know what my friend is talking about,” Moses responds. He says his team has made a transcript, based on a recording that everyone had access to.
Arthur Moses cross-examines Connolly
Arthur Moses is now cross-examining Connolly on behalf of Parramatta council.
Does she accept that she engaged in misconduct?
“No.”
Does she accept that she behaved dishonestly?
“No I don’t.”
Connolly claims anonymous email was a public interest disclosure
We are being taken line by line through the anonymous email Connolly said recently that she had sent to councillors and reporters.
O’Neill, the lawyer for Mulder – about whom the email alleging “fraud and corruption” was directed – is arguing that the email was intended for political purposes, given Mulder had quit the council staff and was planning to run on a probity and integrity platform for the next council election.
He says the purpose was to “split Mr Mulder and Ms Darley running on the same ticket”.
She agrees she did not independently check timesheets that were the basis of her allegation of fraud. She says she sent the email as a public interest disclosure.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
