City of Gosnells Mayor Glenn Dewhurst.
Camera IconCity of Gosnells Mayor Glenn Dewhurst. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

City of Gosnells strips office from Mayor, who says it’s ‘business as usual’

Greig JohnstonComment News

THE City of Gosnells council has voted to strip mayor Glenn Dewhurst of his office and personal assistant, but the embattled leader insisted it was “business as usual”.

The motion to sanction the mayor was created by councillor Dave Griffiths, himself Gosnells mayor from 2011 until 2015.

Mayor Glenn Dewhurst to continue despite no confidence vote

PerthNow Digital Edition.
Your local paper, whenever you want it.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

At last night’s council meeting the motion was carried 9-1, with mayor Dewhurst the only one to oppose it.

Cr Griffiths took exception to social media posts from mayor Dewhurst, which he deemed “tacky” and “offensive”.

“It was a combination of lots of his social media posts,” Cr Griffiths told Community News.

“There’s quite a lot of people who are outraged.

“There was a comment in relation to councillors over the age of 60.

Mayor to apologise after sharing anti-Islamic post

“I believe in that instance the mayor was targeting Cr Olwen Searle and Cr Julie Brown.

“I fall into that age bracket myself.

“People are offended because he’s basically saying people over a certain age are really of no use, they don’t contribute, which is totally wrong.”

Mayor Dewhurst vehemently denied the allegations of ageism.

“I’ve got a business, I’ve just employed a 64-year-old lady,” he said.

“That’s just a load of rubbish.”

Mayor Dewhurst said it was “business as usual” as far as he was concerned.

“All they’ve done is said I can’t use the office, which suits me just fine because I spend most of my time out in the community anyway,” he said.

“I’m still the mayor, still doing all the mayor stuff, still going to all these meetings.

“Nothing’s really changed – it’s actually quite nice not having to go into an office.”

Mayor Dewhurst said leadership ambitions were behind the motion.

“What it boils down to is you’ve got three or maybe four people vying for the mayorship,” he said.

“I haven’t changed one iota – either becoming more aggressive or less aggressive – or changed my habits since the first day I was mayor.

“They’re only bringing this up because it’s coming up to election time.”

The next local government ordinary elections will be held on October 19.