City of South Perth sacks CEO hours after her resignation

The City of South Perth council has declared they would have fired their former chief executive if she hadn’t quit earlier this week.

In a statement sent out by Mayor Greg Milner on Wednesday, he said the council decided at a special council meeting last night to “summarily terminate” Liz Ledger’s employment with the city, one day after she handed in her resignation.

“It’s no secret that the City of South Perth has been the subject of some controversy over the past 12 months,” he said.

“Council has refrained from making public comment during this time because it was necessary to allow the proper processes to be conducted and for council to ensure procedural fairness.”

Milner said in August, the council unanimously decided to suspend Ledger and appoint an external independent workplace investigator to look into multiple allegations of misconduct against her.

“Council received the outcome of the independent investigation [including Ms Ledger’s responses to the allegations] last week,” he said.

“On the basis of the findings of misconduct, council unanimously resolved at a special council meeting last night to summarily terminate Ms Ledger’s employment with immediate effect.

“This supersedes her tendered resignation of 26 October 2026.”

In a letter penned to her LinkedIn account on Tuesday, Ledger said she was appointed a year ago to address the deep-seated, long-standing dysfunction within the chambers, but was continuously prevented from fulfilling her mandate.

“The City of South Perth has exhibited classic symptoms of dysfunction ... councillor resignations and reported psychosocial injuries,” she wrote.

“Unfortunately, when councillors do not understand their statutory roles and responsibilities, the fundamental distinction between the role of CEO and the governing role of councillors becomes distorted.

“As a result, council meetings repeatedly shift away from strategic decision-making and descend into day-to-day operational matters, undermining the organisation’s effectiveness.”

Ledger is the second chief executive of a council to leave, or be asked to resign from their position in the last five weeks.

Michelle Reynolds was formally sacked from the City of Perth on September 22 following a behind-closed-doors council meeting vote.

Perth Lord Mayor Bruce Reynolds (no relation to Michelle), said the move to sack the chief executive was a “significant decision” made after the results of an investigation into the allegations against her were given to the council.

Reynolds said the findings of the investigation and allegations against her were “nothing but a witch hunt designed to impinge my reputation and scapegoat me by an otherwise toxic council and likely cost the rate payers handsomely”.

She confirmed she intended to challenge the decision and would take it “all the way”.

Local government minister Hannah Beazley said the latest saga with the City of South Perth was yet another day of “dysfunction” in local government.

“I’ve had enough of some of our local governments constantly behaving badly. The chaos has to stop,” she said.

“Everyone deserves to have a safe workplace, and communities, residents, ratepayers and stakeholders deserve better than continual poor behaviour and governance problems.”

She said 139 local governments and 1,111 elected local council members is “too many” in Western Australia.

“My local government reform Bill before Parliament will remove barriers to voluntary local government amalgamations,” Beazley said.

“It’s time for local governments and the opposition to get on board and support this reform Bill.

“These reforms will allow for the reset that the local government sector desperately needs.”

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