{"id":623570,"date":"2026-04-22T13:12:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623570\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T13:12:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:12:30","slug":"hobart-councillor-louise-elliot-suspended-for-two-months-over-social-media-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623570\/","title":{"rendered":"Hobart councillor Louise Elliot suspended for two months over social media posts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliot has been suspended for two months following a Code of Conduct panel finding over her social media activity, with the ban to start next week.<\/p>\n

The panel found Elliot breached four parts of the Code of Conduct covering causing offence, undermining council decisions, bringing council into disrepute and failing to show respect.<\/p>\n

Two other alleged breaches were dismissed.<\/p>\n

The complaint was brought by Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds in June 2025 and related to several of Elliot\u2019s Facebook posts made between February and May that year.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds brought on the complaint in June 2025. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\n

The suspension related in part to a post in which she shared an image of a historical document alongside a political comment about the Greens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greens are today\u2019s communists, but with many more men in dresses and young girls with double mastectomies,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n

\"\"The complaint related to Facebook posts made between February and May 2025<\/p>\n

The document Elliot shared was dated December 4 1967 and references the parents of Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds<\/p>\n

It states that Anna Reynolds\u2019 father, historian Henry Reynolds, had attempted to join the Communist Party while a student at the University of Tasmania \u201cbut his application was rejected\u201d.<\/p>\n

The document also suggests Anna Reynold\u2019s father and her mother Margaret \u201cwould probably join the Townsville branch of the Australia-USSR Society in 1968\u201d.<\/p>\n

Elliot said the document was freely available online and not confidential.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliot has been suspended for two months. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\n

The panel found the post \u201chad no purpose other than as an attempt to cause political harm to Cr Reynolds by association\u201d.<\/p>\n

It found the caption sought to infer Margaret Reynolds and Cr Reynolds were members of the Greens.<\/p>\n

In a witness statement, Margaret Reynolds said she was \u201cshocked\u201d by the use of her personal information and felt Elliot had \u201cexploited\u201d her and her husband\u2019s names.<\/p>\n

As part of the outcome, Elliot has been ordered to apologise to Margaret Reynolds for causing \u201cembarrassment and offence\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Elliot was found to have breached four parts of the Code of Conduct. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\n

In a statement to Pulse, Elliot said she had been punished for \u201cfair political commentary\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been suspended for two months for sharing publicly available information with fair political commentary, for comments made on my social media by other people and for criticising council decisions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Reynolds family implied that I\u2019d misused some \u2018secret police file\u2019 when, in reality, I shared information that is freely available online for the world to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel also cited comments left by followers on Elliot\u2019s pages that she did not moderate quickly enough, including one describing Cr Reynolds as \u201ca grub\u201d and others referencing the Lord Mayor\u2019s appearance.<\/p>\n

The hearing was told Elliot had been \u201chiding\u201d some offensive comments rather than deleting them. Elliot agreed at the hearing to delete the relevant posts.<\/p>\n

The panel also found some of her criticism of council decisions was \u201cmisleading\u201d, \u201cinflammatory\u201d and could make people see the council as \u201cdysfunctional\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Louise Elliot will return to the Hobart City Council in June. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\n

Elliot accused the panel of bias and described its members as \u201cunelected, contracted bureaucrats that act as the speech police\u201d.<\/p>\n

She claimed Cr Reynolds had \u201cstockpiled comments\u201d rather than raising concerns directly, though Cr Reynolds told the hearing she had tried to raise issues by email and messenger but was wary because Elliot had previously posted correspondence on Facebook.<\/p>\n

The panel relied on a 2024 Tasmanian Supreme Court ruling finding there is nothing in the Local Government Act requiring panels to consider the implied freedom of political communication. Elliot has reportedly lodged a Federal Court appeal on that point.<\/p>\n

She called on Local Government Minister Kerry Vincent to step in, saying the \u201ccurrent system is faulty and impacting human rights and democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds welcomed the outcome. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\n

In a statement to Pulse, Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said she welcomed the outcome of the independent process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought this complaint because I believe Hobart residents deserve a Council that can debate tough issues without turning disagreement into personal attack or online pile-ons,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can disagree strongly, that\u2019s democracy, but we still have to meet a basic standard of respect and accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reynolds noted this was her first Code of Conduct complaint against Elliot, while Elliot had taken three against her.<\/p>\n

\"\"Louise Elliot will return to the Hobart City Council in June. Image \/ Pulse<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen [the] umpire makes their decision, we may not like it, but we accept the findings,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She pointed to the panel\u2019s finding that Elliot was \u201coffensive and underhanded\u201d in posting personal information about her family.<\/p>\n

Elliot says she will continue posting on social media \u201cas a ratepayer\u201d during her suspension.<\/p>\n

She has a right to apply to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a review.<\/p>\n

She will return to council duties at the end of June, ahead of October\u2019s local government elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliot has been suspended for two months following a Code of Conduct panel finding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-623570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}