Meeting calls for Councillor to quit

CALLS for Dubbo Regional Councillor and Bank of Queensland employee Kevin Parker to resign from Council have reignited after he was formally censured and investigated for breaching Code of Conduct over a racist ‘joke’ email he shared earlier this year.

A motion raised at Council’s extraordinary meeting on Monday night saw all but one Councillor vote in favour of having Mr Parker censured and referred to the Office of Local Government for disciplinary action.

Of the eight Councillors who attended the meeting, Cr Anne Jones was the only person to back Mr Parker and vote against the motion.

While local Councils do not have the power to stand someone down, Cr Stephen Lawrence hopes the Office of Local Government “acts to remove him”.

“The community expect better than racist and frankly stupid behaviour from Councillors,” Cr Lawrence told Dubbo Photo News.

“We are rightly held to a higher standard because our actions have greater consequences.

“That’s a tough reality for Kevin and I actually feel for the bloke, but it’s just how it is.

“Kevin should resign from Council in my view.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Ben Shields is “disappointed” he and Council couldn’t do anything harsher.

“We have got our hands so tied by the Local Government Act that we can only censure and that we can only forward (the matter) on to the Office of Local Government,” Cr Shields said.

“I think something as serious as this needs to be dealt with quicker and I’m concerned that the Office won’t deal with it in a timely manner.”

Labelling the situation as a “disaster”, Cr Shields was also concerned the matter had tarnished Council’s relationship with the local Indigenous community.

“This Council has done a lot of work in our Aboriginal relations,” he explained.

“We realise that 20 per cent of the Dubbo population have got Aboriginal heritage and the idea that we have now got Aboriginal people thinking that their Council hasn’t got their back, it’s just not right.”

The ‘joke’ email, sent on January 17 from Mr Parker’s Bank of Queensland email address, had ‘Jet Black’ as it’s subject line and contained derogatory comments about Indigenous Australians.

When reports of the email first emerged in February, Mr Parker was suspended from his job as a Dubbo Bank of Queensland branch manager and a change.org petition calling for his resignation was started.

Both Cr Kevin Parker and Cr Anne Jones were contacted by Dubbo Photo News for comment but both declined.

The matter now lies with the Office of Local Government.