Former Parramatta Council boss Gail Connolly exhibited ‘paranoia’ about information leaking, ICAC hears
A former Parramatta council employee said he was instructed to snoop on people’s emails because the former chief executive was paranoid about information being leaked to councilors and the media, the corruption watchdog has heard.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption heard on Monday from former City of Parramatta employee John Crawford, who was Western Sydney council’s chief technology officer and is leaving the council on a discharge note in 2025.
On the sixth day of the public inquiry into Operation Navarra, he gave evidence at the ICAC’s hearing into several allegations against former Parramatta chief executive Gail Connolly and other staff, including that he spied on staff and a councilor and used confidential information for improper purposes, including rewarding allies and eliminating critics or perceived opponents.
Crawford said he was asked to investigate staff emails and Teams messages, as well as council member Kellie Darley’s emails, in 2023 and 2024 for evidence that information was leaked. He told the inquiry the requests were approved by Connolly.
He said up to half of those requests were made verbally to Crawford, to prevent the creation of records that could be accessed under the Government Information (Public Access) Act, or GIPAs.
“Ms Connolly objected to certain things being GIPA-compliant, so there was a level of concern that things that were put into writing might be GIPA-ed, and there was concern in general, I would say, about starting with a particular councillor, but that concern grew over time,” he said.
Crawford said these requests required him to search “tens of thousands” of messages and would typically require about 30 hours of work each week.
He told the inquest he was also asked to search phone records. This included double searches of records of current and former staff to see if they had any contact with Darley.
In 2024, Crawford said Connolly asked him to search Darley’s emails and find any confidential information leaked in relation to the council’s $1.15 million sponsorship of the Parramatta Eels rugby league club. reporter reporter Anthony Segaert. Crawford said he identified an email sent to this imprint as a media release.
Crawford said he was unaware Darley’s emails and phone records had been searched.
To prevent his team from being considered a potential leak, Crawford said he fielded all requests himself.
“In my view, what can best be redefined is information leak paranoia; the more people know, the more people are blamed,” he said. “So I decided to protect my staff from it and do it myself.”
Crawford said he also investigated, with Connolly’s permission, the messages of former employee Sheree Gover, who testified on the second day of the trial, which led to the investigation of Gover expanding to include the messages of several other employees.
Although we are concerned about the justification Crawford told the inquiry that following the oversight he felt he could not say no to the requests because he felt the council did not have a safe working environment to make complaints, particularly in relation to requests from the chief executive.
“He turned for good reason. It was like a Pandora’s box; the more information he was given, the further off course he got.” [became]he said.
The trial continues.
Ellie Busby is a Parramatta reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
