Former Deputy Mayor Jesse Jacobs has fired a broadside at Canning Mayor Patrick Hall, accusing him of deliberately breaching rules of conduct during the local government election.
During the Canning election, Mr Hall was vocal in his support for candidates Hardeep Singh, Steve Parkinson and Paul Tucek, endorsing all three through his mayoral Facebook account and paying for sponsored Facebook posts endorsing the candidates.
According to Mr Jacobs, who did not contest the position of Deputy Mayor at Monday night’s special meeting of council, Mr Hall has undercut the democratic process.
“It’s undemocratic and sets a very dangerous precedent, it shouldn’t be allowed in the future,” he said.
“In Nicholson you had seven candidates, so the Mayor’s come out early and endorsed candidate number one, number one is great number one is genuine, that has automatically disadvantaged six other candidates.
“So, I think he’s in breach of the Local Government Act in disadvantaging others.
“Not only did he publicly support them, he financially supported him.”
“What I think his strategy is, I think he knows he’s going to get done for it under regulation 7, he’s probably going to get done for it.
“He probably thought that the reward is so great that he did it anyway. “
The Department of Local Government said that while the provisions under the Local Government Act 1995 and associated regulations do not prohibit ‘candidate endorsement’, a decision as to whether there is a breach of the Model Code of Conduct would be a matter for the Standards Panel to consider and that in regards to paid advertising, if payment for advertising has been correctly disclosed under electoral gift provisions, then there would be no breach of Local Government legislation.
Mr Hall said the endorsement of candidates across all levels of government was not unusual.
“My interest here is to encourage people to engage in Local Government Elections and where I identify candidates I feel would benefit the local council and provide a strong voice for their community, especially those already very well connected within those communities, I will of course, where I feel it’s appropriate, come out and support their campaigns,” he said.
“Councillor Jesse Jacobs needs to re-focus on his community and stop making these public allegations which are undignified and take focus away from the good work we are doing in the community.
“I think it’s of no benefit to any person, apart from possibly Councillor Jacobs, for continuing to make these attacks and I hope he stops.”
