Greater Dandenong councillor Rhonda Garad has gone head to head with the council’s chief executive over the council’s response to her social media retweets on Gaza.
Her conflict with CEO Jacqui Weatherill escalated after the council refused her ‘cease-and-desist’ demand to publicly apologise and retract its media statement on her retweets.
A GoFundMe page, ‘Rhonda vs the CEO,’ has been launched to help with Cr Garad’s legal costs.
She has also filed a complaint at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission against Ms Weatherill, leaving open a possible defamation action if Greater Dandenong does not engage with the Commission.
Cr Garad says the dispute was about protecting councillors’ freedom of speech, and was costing her both financially and psychologically.
“Let’s remember my crime here – my crime was retweets that were standing against the country that’s committing genocide, about Israel, Netanyahu, IDF. My tweets were all about standing against genocide,” she says.
“For that crime I now have to traverse a highly hostile environment engineered by the CEO who chose to use all the weight of her office to defame me, and falsely state I was anti-semitic.
“I deeply resent that she’s using unlimited ratepayers money, including mine, to defend herself against an inappropriate behaviour she has conducted.
“(It is) forcing me to finance myself against her simply to defend democracy, I’m deeply angered by that.
“I must fight to protect the political freedom of speech for all councillors, and to stop unelected CEOs from silencing and defaming elected representatives.”
She claims the council’s July media statement to Herald Sun that some of her social-media retweets “support anti-semitic language” and that “genuine political comment should never cross into vilification, abuse or inciting hatred” was false, defamatory, and an attempt to restrict her social media activity.
She says the council should have instead issued a “no comment” on the grounds of her “right to free speech”.
In its response to Cr Garad’s cease and desist letter, Greater Dandenong denies that it has made any false or defamatory statements, but rather made an “observation and opinion”.
It also denies asserting that Cr Garad had engaged in ‘vilification, abuse or inciting hatred’, nor waged an alleged coordinated effort to silence her social media activity and performance as a councillor.
Councillor Garad says it’s “frightening” that the CEO doesn’t see “she has overstepped her role”.
“The CEO is not our boss, her only role is if, for example, I was disparaging the council or critical of her role.
“She speaks as though she gave her opinion on a pretty park, that’s how much she is framing this as absolutely nothing,” she said.
As a result of their strained relationship, Cr Garad says she doesn’t feel “psychologically safe” with the CEO and is taking measures to avoid her or not to be alone with her.
She’s fearful that the council is “looking for ways” to remove her because she’s “inconvenient and challenges the council on so many things”.
“At the end of the day I know why I’m there. I have enormous support from the community, a lot of people have contacted me about this.
“I know being anti-genocide I’m on the right side of the history, none of what I’ve done is inappropriate.”
A council spokesperson said workplace safety was of “utmost importance.”
“There are no barriers to Cr Garard’s participation in any councillor activities such as attending briefings and council meetings. Council values the participation of all Councillors.
“While Council does not believe any conduct has taken place by officers to negatively impact her safety, it has invited Cr Garad to provide specific details about her concerns about safety.
“She has also been invited to suggest any specific measures or actions she thinks Council should take to create a psychologically safe environment.”
Greater Dandenong confirmed it has not initiated any legal action in relation to Cr Garad.
