THE wife of a local resident who last week began an online petition to see Gawler CEO Henry Inat’s removal was stood down from her position at council on Friday.
In an email to elected members and executive staff, Marc Webb criticised the move to stand down his wife, Rhiann, over allegations of a “breach of privacy” – pending an investigation.
“If my source was my wife, I would have created a change.org (petition) profile under a completely different name, or found someone completely unrelated to the council and asked them to deal with the matter on my behalf,” he said.
“She has not shared any information with me that is either confidential or been released to the public by myself.”
Due to technical issues, the change.org petition was removed from the site, but has now been replaced.
Gawler councillor Ian Tooley sympathised with the couple’s situation, claiming Mrs Webb’s stand down to be a “bad look” for council.
“Regarding the criticisms that you make in relation to CEO Inat’s performance review, and the fact that this is linked to his request for a lucrative contract extension as you describe… I fully agree that this is a very bad look,” he said.
“(Especially) given, as you state, it is continuing at the same time that CEO Inat has used COVID-19 as the justification for putting a freeze on staff wages, not on exec staff wages, and for putting a freeze on the long-running (enterprise agreement) negotiations.”
According to The Advertiser, The Australian Services Union (ASU) has since taken the enterprise agreement matter to the South Australian Employment Tribunal.
A meeting between the union and council is planned for Thursday.
Gawler Mayor Karen Redman and CEO Henry Inat declined The Bunyip’s offer to comment.
