![\"City](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/46ec20bc9e510628290567507b69cf9f2f8b911d.jpg\")
Camera IconCity of Stirling Mayor Mark Irwin has been forced to issue a public apology in regard to an exchange that occurred at the city\u2019s electors general meeting in March 2025. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\nCity of Stirling mayor Mark Irwin has been forced to issue a public apology for the second time this year after being found to have committed a minor breach of the local government model code of conduct.<\/p>\n
The apology was made at last week\u2019s council meeting after the Local Government Standards Panel found Mr Irwin improperly used his office by preventing ratepayer Roland Hadley from asking questions and treating him disrespectfully during an annual electors\u2019 general meeting.<\/p>\n
Mr Irwin delivered the apology to Mr Hadley, who made the formal complaint, after an order made by the standards panel in May 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cA complaint was made to the Local Government Standards Panel, in which it was alleged that I contravened the local government model code of conduct 2021 when, at the electors\u2019 general meeting held on 24 March 2025, I prevented the complainant from asking questions and treated him in a disrespectful manner,\u201d Mr Irwin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe panel found that by behaving in this manner, I committed one breach … of the said regulations.<\/p>\n
Camera IconCity of Stirling Mayor Mark Irwin has been forced to issue a public apology in regard to an exchange that occurred at the city\u2019s electors general meeting in March 2025. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cI accept that I should not have acted in such a manner and I now apologise to Mr Roland Hadley for having done so.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the meeting in question, Mr Hadley questioned the mayor\u2019s handling of council projects and attempted to move two motions of no confidence in Mr Irwin over what he described as a \u201clack of community engagement and non-disclosure of information\u201d, as well as a \u201clack of accountability and transparency\u201d in spending ratepayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n
However, Mr Irwin, who is also the president of the WA Local Government Association, ruled the motions out of order.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the opportunity at any election to put your no confidence in me. There is no substance to that motion,\u201d Mr Irwin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t heard a motion, if you\u2019d like to put a coherent motion to us,\u201d he added in response to Mr Hadley\u2019s comments, before he put forward a second motion.<\/p>\n
While the standards panel said it was \u201csomewhat understanding of the frustration Mr Irwin may have felt\u201d, it found neither the first nor the second motion was ruled out of order for a valid reason.<\/p>\n
The panel also found Mr Irwin intended to cause detriment to Mr Hadley through his actions at the meeting and said he had \u201cacted in an impolite and impatient manner\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the complainant had finished reading out the second part of the first motion … mayor Irwin then continued to act improperly by undermining the complainant\u2019s ability to put forward a \u2018coherent\u2019 motion,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was plainly disrespectful and rude considering he had not let the complainant finish reading out his first motion in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The panel\u2019s findings report also noted a \u201cprop\u201d brought by Mr Hadley while speaking was \u201crather unusual\u201d and perhaps \u201csomewhat annoying\u201d to Mr Irwin, given some attendees, including council members, found it amusing.<\/p>\n
The panel stated it was satisfied Mr Irwin intended to cause detriment to Mr Hadley at the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cMayor Irwin determined who spoke when and had placed the complainant as last on the list of electors,\u201d the panel claimed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had then prevented the complainant from reading out his first motion in its entirety and mocked openly what he deemed the complainant\u2019s inability to put forward a \u2018coherent\u2019 motion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seemed more likely than not to the panel that mayor Irwin had not wished to deal\/interact with the complainant more than was necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, he had wrongfully restricted the complainant\u2019s ability to be heard at the EGM as compared to other electors in attendance and had deliberately undermined him.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the findings report, Mayor Irwin\u2019s response to the complaint indicated that he regarded Mr Hadley as difficult to deal with and troublesome over a significant period, and believed he intended to cause \u201cdivision\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s apology was the second Mr Irwin has been ordered to make in the past 12 months by the Local Government Standards Panel.<\/p>\n
After initially attempting to challenge the finding, Mr Irwin made an apology earlier this year in relation to an exchange with a resident during public question time at a council meeting in June 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City of Stirling mayor Mark Irwin has been forced to issue a public apology for the second time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,135,44,84],"class_list":["post-810393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-local-government","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810393","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=810393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}