Perth Lord Mayor appeals to Supreme Court to overturn SAT findings against her

PERTH Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi has appealed to the Supreme Court in a bid to overturn the State Administrative Tribunal’s (SAT) findings against her.

Ms Scaffidi faced day one of her penalty hearing on Wednesday, which came after the SAT found she had committed 45 breaches of the Local Government Act by failing to properly declare gifts and third party contributions to her travel expenses.

On May 22, 13 days after the Tribunal’s decision, Ms Scaffidi lodged a writ with the Court of Appeal seeking to have the SAT findings set aside.

The SAT’s decision bulletin from May, published this week, listed the decision in the May 9 matter of Chief Executive Officer, Department of Local Government and Communities v Scaffidi, and before detailing the outcome notes: “This decision is currently pending appeal at the Supreme Court”.

It is not known on what grounds Ms Scaffidi planned to mount the appeal.

The appeal could delay the final outcome of the Lord Mayor’s long-running gifts issue by many months.

WA Premier Mark McGowan, Opposition Leader Mike Nahan and Local Government Minister David Templeman have all called on Ms Scaffidi to resign.

At Wednesday’s penalty hearing, Ms Scaffidi admitted she had been careless with her gift declarations and agreed with State Solicitor’s Office lawyer David Leigh that she had “blithely ignored” warnings about her annual returns.

The penalty hearing resumes next Wednesday, June 21.

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