Former City of Greater Dandenong councillors have pitched in for councillor Rhonda Garad’s ‘fight for free speech’ against the council’s CEO.
Peter Brown a former ALP member and Matthew Kirwan, a Greens member, donated to Rhonda Garad’s GoFundMe page, ‘Rhonda vs the CEO,’ to help cover her legal costs in a dispute with the council’s chief executive officer Jacqui Weatherill.
Garad’s conflict with CEO Ms Weatherill escalated after the council refused her ‘cease-and-desist’ demand to publicly apologise and retract its media statement on her social media retweets.
The media statement to Herald Sun alleged that Cr Garad’s social media activity “support anti-semitic language” and that “genuine political comment should never cross into vilification, abuse or inciting hatred.”
As previously reported by Star Journal, Cr Garad has 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.
Mr Kirwan said that it was important that a CEO of a council doesn’t make political comments about an elected councillor.
“I very much wanted to donate to her page because I think she is justified in the course of action she is taking,”
Mr Brown says he doesn’t support all of Cr Garad’s statements or her activism on Gaza, but quotes French philosopher Voltaire who says, “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
“Much of what Cr Garad said I disagreed with. However, having been a councillor for many years I’m well aware of pressures that councillors are put under both from fellow councillors and staff to not speak up,” he says.
“When I saw the pressure put on her to prevent her right to free speech I said no, I’ll support her to fight.”
“Cr Garad would be one of the intelligent, empathetic and considerate people I met and become aware of. She is very temperate in what she says.
“She should not be treated in the way it appears she has been treated by the council for expressing a view.
“Having said that, what is going on in the Middle East in terms of strategy, events so on – what that’s got to do with council rates, rubbish, I would never know.”
He has criticised both the council and councillor Garad “standing on a grandstand on international issues” unrelated to the community it serves calling it a “distraction” and completely out of their scope.
“The more Cr Garad is opposed with efforts to silence her, the longer the distraction will continue.”
Mr Brown says he has never experienced anything like this dispute in his 15 years as a councillor and mayor.
“It tells me that in contemporary politics there’s an increasingly higher level of intolerance of what people say or do than I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.
“Now we have tens and thousands of Israeli protesters in Tel Aviv protesting against the very thing that Cr Garad is pointing out.
“Councillors who are activists in their approach are magnets to criticism. There will be a lot of support from people who are benefiting from it, but other people would see that the money or approach is better directed towards something else.”
A Council spokesperson denied there were attempts to silence or restrict Cr Garad’s social media activity or her role as a councillor.
Both former councillors last served in 2021 but have kept tabs open on local issues and run in elections since. Mr Kirwan ran in the recent federal elections against Isaacs MP Mark Dreyfus, while Peter Brown nominated for the 2024 council elections.
