Councillor resigns after probe into domestic violence comment
Noel Selby (centre) and council chief executive Andrew Meddle (right). (ABC Mid North Coast: Marina Trajkovich)
In short:
Noel Selby has resigned from Kempsey Shire Council after he was found to have made an offensive comment to a woman on Facebook.
Councillors unanimously called for his resignation last month, but Mr Selby maintained his account had been hacked.
What's next?
The council is expected to hold a by-election in the next three months.
A New South Wales Mid North Coast councillor has resigned after he was found to have made a violent comment to a woman on social media.
The remark from Kempsey Shire councillor Noel Selby's private Facebook profile was made in response to a comment from a woman alleging a man was violent towards multiple partners.
The response from Mr Selby's account stated "pity he hadn't bashed you".
In October, an independent investigation found the councillor did post the comment on Facebook, despite him claiming his account had been hacked.
Councillors unanimously called for Ms Selby's resignation at a meeting on October 20.
Mr Selby maintained he did not make the comment, said he would not stand down and was "against all acts of domestic violence".
But on Wednesday the council confirmed Mr Selby had written to tender his immediate resignation.
"With Cr Selby's resignation, we can now close the chapter on what has been a difficult few months for our council and community and look ahead with a renewed focus on the positive things we can achieve together," Mayor Kinne Ring said in a statement.
She said the by-election triggered by Mr Selby's resignation would come "at a time when Council is working hard to address significant financial challenges".
"But a council's financial position can be rebuilt. Public trust, once lost, is much harder to restore," Cr Ring's statement said.
She said the community "deserves representatives who understand that holding public office is a privilege, not an entitlement, and that the responsibility to uphold its standards must always come before personal interests".
A council spokesperson said the shire "does not condone violence in any form, including domestic and family violence".
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.