ICAC Operation Navarra live: Sacked Parramatta Council CEO faces cross-examination

Welcome to day 24 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s public inquiry into the City of Parramatta’s former chief executive Gail Connolly and other staff.

Under Operation Navarra, the ICAC is investigating whether council staff members, central among them Connolly, misused public funds by having staff leave through deeds of release (agreements made between staff and the council upon a departure), subverted the council’s recruitment and other processes, disclosed confidential information to third parties, and spied on staff and a councillor.

Yesterday, on Connolly’s sixth and possibly penultimate day in the witness box, the former exec agreed with claims put to her by Counsel Assisting Joanna Davidson SC that she had requested senior staff monitor the emails and phone records of independent councillor Kellie Darley.

Connolly refuted evidence put forward by the council’s former head of IT that she would regularly request searches of staff emails, via phone or verbally in order to avoid information being located in freedom of information requests.

Today, Connolly will be cross-examined by Arthur Moses SC, representing the City of Parramatta, and by legal representatives for Roxanne Thornton, a friend and colleague also under investigation by the ICAC.

About 1200 people’s emails – all council employees and councillors – were surveilled to work out who was leaking to the Herald, Connolly says.

John Crawford, the former IT boss of the council, had earlier given evidence to the commission that he had accessed six of independent councillor Kellie Darley’s emails, “some with private citizens about her political views, and two more the next day, including a media release to a Sydney Morning Herald journalist”, Moses summarises.

“I recall the search [about] the journalist revealed a media release, and then the complaint was addressed, and the investigation stopped,” Connolly says.

“You never told the elected body, did you, before you did it, that you were going to check their emails to check who had sent emails from them to The Sydney Morning Herald? Did you tell them?”

She said she didn’t.

“There was no written approval for her emails to be accessed by you.”

“I can’t recall.”

Moses has just compared Connolly to J Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who was found to have secretly abused his power by surveilling elected officials and civil rights leaders.

“You seem to think that you have the power, a bit like J Edgar Hoover, to conduct investigations into elected officials in order to obtain information about what they’re up to,” he puts to Connolly.

She denies this, and her legal representative, Ryan Coffey, objects to the question. Moses withdraws it.

“There’s no pathway by which you, as a CEO, can investigate the councillors to whom you answer … You do not have the statutory power to investigate councillors.”

Connolly points to the council’s complaints management policy that allowed “any complaint [made to] the CEO to investigate a complaint”.

She apologises to the commissioner for her confusion, saying “there were so many investigations going on at any one time, I can’t recall” a specific email being raised by Moses.

In early 2023, the City of Parramatta was issued an improvement notice from SafeWork NSW, which found there was “personal criticism, unwarranted accusations, raised voices, ridicule and intimidation which, reportedly, are not being appropriately addressed during or following workshop meetings.”

Moses is putting it to Connolly that the former chief executive used this notice, which was posted and he says complied with before she arrived, “used the notice as justification for surveilling a staff member, Ms Gover, who had complained about people close to you”.

“That wasn’t the sole justification but it was one of the factors for consideration, yes,” she says.

Connolly denies treating staff with double standards – “taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut” when a staff member she did not like was accused of bullying, but was “shy to strike” when the same accusations were made of a friend.

We’re back from an adjournment, and Arthur Moses is cross-examining Connolly about her comments yesterday that she thought independent councillor Kellie Darley had been “colluding” with The Sydney Morning Herald.

In her anonymous email to councillors, this reporter and a Daily Telegraph reporter alleging fraud, Connolly wrote: “I’ve also included the journalists that you work with to make sure that the matter gets proper investigation.”

Moses asks if Connolly accepts that councillors, in a democracy, are entitled to speak to the media. She does. She also accepts that all politicians use the media to communicate a message.

Moses asks what she meant yesterday when she claimed Darley had been in “collaboration” with this masthead (in fact, Connolly said there was “collusion”).

Two views of day 24 of the public inquiry:

Arthur Moses SC, acting on behalf of the City of Parramatta, says: “This is not a Monty Python skit.”

Gail Connolly responds: “It’s the Spanish Inquisition” – a reference to the famous recurring Monty Python skit about the long-running tribunals, which used anonymous accusations and coerced confessions.

The inquiry has adjourned for morning tea.

“Just come clean to the commission, for goodness sake,” Moses tells Connolly as she explains that she sent this email because she really believed the investigation was being “swept under the rug”.

“Ms Connolly, what you are doing now, with the greatest respect to you, and I say it respectfully, you are engaging in historic revisionism to get yourself out of a tight spot because you’ve been caught out engaging in corrupt conduct, correct? That’s what you’re doing.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

Moses is now referring to an email Connolly sent to the lord mayor at the time, who asked if she had seen the email. She told the mayor she had not.

“You lied to the lord mayor,” Moses says.

“That’s correct.”

For the first time, it has been revealed Connolly referred what she considered concerns about “fraud and corruption” by a former staffer-turned-council candidate Justin Mulder to the Independent Commission Against Corruption – but Moses has accused her of lying to the commission.

“I have received an allegation made as a [public interest disclosure],” Connolly wrote in the letter, which was read out by the City of Parramatta’s Arthur Moses.

But Connolly has admitted she never received a public interest disclosure about the matter.

“You never received one?” Moses asks.

A fiery exchange between Moses and Connolly just now.

Moses: “What the commission has been trying to work out is: are you lying to it about your motives in sending [an anonymous email alleging corruption by a council staffer-turned-council candidate]–

“The answer to that is no,” Connolly interjects.

“Are you in effect unable to confront the truth yourself,” Moses asks, “which is why you’ve been sitting here for six days making up explanations, because you cannot admit that you lack integrity. Is that why we’re here?”

Moses is grilling Connolly about the hiring of her niece at the council.

Connolly completed a conflict of interest disclosure when her niece was hired, stating that she had “nil involvement in recruitment, interview, evaluation, approval to appoint”.

“You did have involvement ... This certification in this document was false, and you knew it to be false when you signed it. Do you accept that?”

“No, I don’t.”

Day 24 of the hearing has commenced, and Moses, on behalf of the council, is due to begin giving evidence.

Chief Commissioner John Hatzistergos has flagged the hearing will adjourn at 11am (he has a morning tea to attend).

Reminder, you can watch the livestream of the hearing.