A Mount Isa City councillor has told a parliamentary hearing that vexatious complaints were taken an enormous toll and questioned whether it was making it worthwhile to serve in public office.
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Cr Kim Coghlan was speaking at the inquiry hearing in Mount Isa into the Office of the Independent Assessor, an office created in 2018 after the Crime and Conduct Commission's Belcarra inquiry.
Under its terms councillors faced strict integrity rules which included a new code of conduct for local government members and a new definition of misconduct.
The laws created new criminal offences, mandated reporting requirements for councillors and procedural fairness requirements.
However several speakers at the Mount Isa hearing including Cloncurry mayor Greg Campbell and Mount Isa councillors Phil Barwick and Mick Tully said the overwhelming number of complaints were vexatious and used only by political enemies of sitting councillors.
Cr Coghlan as the final speaker who perhaps made the biggest impression when she talked of her shock of getting a complaint against her out of the blue.
She said she'd never heard of the OIA until she got an email late one night after being elected back to council in 2020.
"It was confidential, in red, very official looking, I opened it, started to read. and I'll put it in layman's terms I shit myself, my mouth went dry, I got light-headed, it listed all these charges against me," Cr Coghlan said.
"I got upset. I'm a single mum with four children. I love this community. I was born and bred in Mount Isa."
She said the reason she went on council was to help people and to help make Mount Isa a better place.
"So there I am at night, reading this email and then it says at the bottom, this is confidential, do not discuss this with anyone," she said.
"I got no sleep that night. I had to get legal advice and engage lawyers because I didn't know what to do."
Cr Coghlan said a few months later she got another email.
"It said 'you've been reported, ra ra ra...it's not been substantiated You're cleared.' And I didn't know I'd did anything wrong," she said.
"That's since happened another two times."
Cr Coghlan said she heard people community knew she was being investigated even though she didn't.
"People are being rung up about me, so people are saying to me 'Cogo, what have you been up to?'," she said,
Cr Coghlan said that after a complaint she wrote back to the OIA refuting the complaints but the OIA sent the matter to Council who had to get external investigators in.
"The investigator found I was guilty of some of the things, but I got legal advice and smashes his report," she said.
"I didn't understand one of the charges and asked the investigator and he said 'I don't understand it either'."
Cr Coghlan said she was eventually found not guilty of everything but the personal toll was huge.
"I get upset, the kids get upset and it's not fair," she said.
"The person who puts the complaint in - nothing happens to them."
Although Mount Isa City Council CEO had recommended councillor training in his submission, Cr Coghlan didn't think that would solve the problem.
"It doesn't matter what training you get, if someone is out to get you," she said.
"Because it is anonymous, which is wrong to start with, faceless, vindictive people in the community can get you."
Cr Coghlan said it made her question about whether it was worthwhile to stand for public office and her children didn't want her to stand again saying the issue was making her too angry.
"You are going to lose good people over this," she said.
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