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The former City of Parramatta boss was playing games over an executive’s departure from the council, an anti-corruption inquiry has heard, when she advised him not to speak to a colleague who had experienced a death in the family. The death was confirmed to be a pet rabbit.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption on Friday heard from John Angilley, a former chief finance and information officer who left the council in January 2025 with a deed of release.
He gave evidence on day five of the public inquiry in Operation Navarra, the ICAC’s hearing into multiple allegations against former Parramatta chief executive Gail Connolly and other staff, including that she spied on staff and a councillor, and used confidential information for improper purposes, including rewarding allies and removing critics or perceived opponents.
Angilley told the inquiry that, following the council election in 2024, Connolly raised concerns to him that the newly elected councillors wanted both of them gone from the council, despite Angilley saying he did not see any evidence of this.
He said he believed it was actually Connolly who wanted his position at the western Sydney council terminated.
“I think the fact that I was potentially a threat to her in terms of the relationships and running the organisation, she was either going to silence you or put you back in your box and follow their way of doing things,” Angilley said.
“I don’t think she really thought through the repercussions of me saying, well, you obviously don’t have confidence and don’t want me here because nothing else indicated to me that the chamber and the relationships were strained. There’s no point in me being here working for you if I don’t have the trust and confidence from my chief executive, despite what I believed I delivered through the organisation.”
At the time he agreed to leave the council, Angilley said Connolly had told him she would also leave and was looking into taking on the role of administrator at Liverpool City Council. Connolly told him that if she did, she would take a number of staff members, including him, with her, but Angilley said he didn’t believe she ever planned for him to join her.
During discussions of his payout, Angilley said it became clear Connolly would not offer him a redundancy as she believed it would not be acceptable following the recent restructure of the organisation, but she said that up to 52 weeks was the “the golden number” in relation to the payment he could expect.
But following those initial discussions, Angilley said Connolly backtracked on that figure and was “playing games” to avoid finalising his deed. It included telling him not to contact his colleague, executive director people culture and workplace Brendan Clifton on October 23, 2024, to discuss details of his payment because Clifton had experienced a death in the family, the inquiry heard.
“Did you understand that to be a means of, from your perspective, delaying things further?” counsel assisting Joanna Davidson, SC, asked Angilley.
“Well, I did, once I messaged Mr Clifton, and he revealed what the death in the family was,” he said.
“I was concerned that he obviously had a tragic circumstance in his family, and he wrote back laughingly that yes, it was the death of his pet rabbit.”
On or around October 24, 2024, Connolly and Angilley agreed to a deed based on 38 weeks’ payment plus entitlements. Special leave was used to increase the payment and Angilley was also paid sick leave, Davidson said in her opening address.
Angilley said he was later informed that Connolly had told staff the reason he had left the organisation was due to his wife’s illness. Connolly knew that was not the reason for his exit, he said.
Recruitment, a councillor investigation and GIPA requests
Angilley told the inquiry that before Roxanne Thornton joined City of Parramatta as the chief governance and risk officer, Connolly had removed the essential requirement for a law degree following a review of the position. Angilley said Thornton did not have a degree and that it was Connolly who first suggested Thornton for the role.
The evidence also covered Angilley and other staff being instructed by Connolly to not put anything in writing to avoid the creation of records that could be accessed by a freedom of information request. He recalled one instance where they sent something in writing to Connolly and she called him and “went cranky”.
Angilley also said that in 2024, Connolly told him there were multiple code of conduct investigations into councillor Kellie Darley. He told the inquiry that Connolly requested him to ask chief technology officer John Crawford to search Darley’s emails to “find out what had been sent out to media outlets”.
The hearing will continue next week.
