Liverpool council mayor claims Labor government is back to old tricks as they prepare to sue 06:33

Well, there's been an update to the Liverpool City Council drama. So, of course, the state government is threatening to sack Liverpool City Council and delay the council elections for all the voters in that area. Now, this is a result of an Office of Local Government report that I had my say on last week that I thought the allegations of were not explosive, as some are liking to report. They were fairly thin in many cases.

But ultimately, they deserve a public inquiry. My view was pretty simple. That public inquiry, the consequence of that is not sacking a council before those allegations have been tested in that public inquiry, nor delaying or suspending the democratic process for people to vote in a council election. I thought that was overreach in the extreme. Anyway,

Ron Honig, the local government minister and the state government have come out and said our intention is to sack Liverpool Council and delay the election as a result of this report. So you know what Liverpool Council's done? They have just voted to commence legal proceedings against the men's government in the Supreme Court. The mayor of Liverpool City Council who's at the centre of all this, Ned Manoon's on the line. Mayor, thanks for your time. Thanks, Chris. So you want an injunction, do you?

Yes, we've had senior counsel advice that clearly states that the New South Wales government has acted unlawfully and have denied the people in that report procedural fairness.

Okay, and when you say the people in that report, that's members of Liverpool City Council, correct? So I'm the only person mentioned very briefly in a 50-page report. I probably make up maybe half a page. The rest of it is about council staff who had no warning that they were going to be mentioned in the report and were never, not once, spoken to by the investigators. Okay.

Okay. So, and your view from senior counsel is, or the advice from senior counsel is that is a what? A denial of procedural fairness.

100%. This is just an absolute joke. They're going out there and conducting themselves like a dictatorship. At least if you've accused someone, have a fair go. Give that person an opportunity to respond. A staff member should not have to wait for a public inquiry for them to be able to clear their names. And at the end of the day, it's not fair for them. And it's not fair for the community that's going to cop this from Labour just going out there and acting like they used to do. Like when Eddie Obeid was around...

abusing government power and this is just another example of the same old labour that we had back in the previous term. I know you came on this program last week and we discussed this at length but any court proceedings what will that cost ratepayers?

So we've got an estimate at the moment that we think could go around $150,000. It's going to cost $800,000 to cancel the election alone. On top of that, we have to pay for the public inquiry. So this process is probably going to cost ratepayers around $1.5 million if the government continues along that path.

Have you heard anything from the minister, Ron Honing? Oh no, he said that it was his intention to suspend council and delay the election. Have you heard anything from Minister Honing as to whether or not he'll action that?

All we heard is when you spoke to him and you rightly so asked him the questions, we haven't heard from him since. Our report, we're going out to him. So the first thing that we're doing is we're writing to him today asking him to withdraw the threat of sacking council and public inquiry. Should he not do that, then we will go out there and seek an injunction.

Ultimately, this is about procedural fairness. It's about the right thing to do, and it's for the community. Why does the community get dragged into this? They can have a go at me as a Liberal any day they want, but the reality is Labour does not want to have a strong Liberal voice in this area. Let the people choose if I haven't been a good mayor or not. Let the people choose if they think Liverpool Council is dysfunctional. Three months ago, the Labour government gave myself and the Council an award for business excellence in local government.

Three months ago, they gave us an award. And I'll laugh. I'm going to send you a picture, Chris. I thought, you know, we're joking around. Actually, I'm wearing it over my neck at the moment, right? It's an absolute joke. This is just a Labor hijab on a Liberal mayor. It's never been done before. They have never issued ever, no government in New South Wales has issued an interim report on a council, especially 50 days out from an election. I did notice the acting chief executive, Jason Breton. Is that his name?

Correct, yes. Okay, so Jason Breton, he was in that report. Effectively, the allegation was that Jason Breton had a company and he could have been potentially moonlighting. And the basis of that allegation was...

an active website but was the business active mayor mate number one he doesn't have a company um number two no it has not been active and had even asked that question he could have easily provided his tax returns and said hey i've never had i've never had i haven't had a dollar coming to this company i think he said to me 24 since 2014 it's that simple it doesn't need a public inquiry and it doesn't need one and a half million dollars of ray pay's money to for him to prove that he wasn't moonlighting

Whoever was in the office of local government that did the investigating, like FedIncome, the whole thing is extremely thin. Now, you've said you're open to the public inquiry, right? Yeah, look, the issues that are in that report, when you look at it, if that little thing there, you take a page out on Jason Brennan. The other staff members that I mentioned in there, there's nothing in the report. They've padded this report out to make it 50 pages so it sounds like there's something in it, and we have ripped through it all. The senior council has gone through it, right?

And we're now going through, Jason used to be a detective chief inspector. So he's now going through this and saying, wow, look at the flaws of this. It's one of the worst investigations, inverted commas, that he's ever seen. Mayor, before I let you go, the senior council who Liverpool City Council is engaging, can you tell us who that is? Yeah, Tim, I think his name is Tim Robertson. Tim Robertson it is. Tim Robertson. All right. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate you coming on.

No, good on you, Chris. Thank you. That's Ned Manoon, the Mayor of Liverpool City Council.