Day 1 - Mayor implements new Code of Conduct ...

... Day 2 - Mayor breaches new Code of Conduct ...

Has the Mayor breached the Toowoomba City Council's new Code of Conduct for Councillors on the day after it was implemented?

She is quoted in yesterday's The Australian as saying she believes that 70% of the community support her plan [to recycle sewage for drinking purposes].

Unless she is hiding a secret report under her mayoral robes that shows Toowoomba as being unique in Australia on its views on drinking recycled sewage, this is absolute nonsense. Every statistic points to the opposite conclusion.

Her approach may be - if you repeat a statistic often enough, people will start to believe it. Unfortunately for the Mayor, the number "2.3.2.4" is a more relevant number.

Section 2.3.2.4 of the Council's new Code of Conduct for Councillors states:"Councillors must conduct themselves in a manner which will maintain and strengthen the public's trust and confidence in the integrity of the Council, ensuring that their actions do not detract from the integrity of the Council and avoiding any action which may diminish its standing, authority or dignity."

If the Mayor is telling all who will listen that 70% of the community support her plan when she has no evidence to support this claim, she is conducting herself in a manner which will not "maintain and strengthen the public's trust and confidence in the integrity of the Council". It is hard to draw any other conclusion based on how she is misleading the community and the Federal government.

The Code of Conduct is generally self-regulating (so the Councillors smack their own wrists for breaches). However, with the public's trust and confidence in the Council's integrity at an all-time low as a result of attempts to introduce its ill-conceived plan to recycle sewage for drinking, how long can it be before complaints are filed by members of the public for breaches by the Mayor of the Code of Conduct?

See- Code of Conduct.