Waverley mayor Sally Betts, pictured with Member for Coogee Bruce Notley Smith and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, is at the centre of a political stoush over a code of conduct investigation. Credit:Bruce Notley-Smith Member for Coogee Her critics, however, see the matter entirely differently. "It's farcical what's occurring," Labor councillor John Wakefield said. "All that Betts is required to do is apologise." For well over a year, Cr Betts has been fighting vocal and determined members of her community over her plans to revamp Bondi Pavilion. At an unruly meeting of Waverley Council in May 2016, Cr Betts decided to adjourn the discussion, just as the meeting was poised to discuss the Pavilion upgrade. But Cr Betts did not have the support of a majority of councillors. At 12:48am Cr Betts declared a vote to adjourn the meeting "carried on the voices," amid a flurry of complaints she had ignored the upraised hand of her Liberal colleague Cr Joy Clayton, who voted against party lines to continue the meeting.

The complaints were lodged by seven local residents, who were observing the meeting from the public gallery. Independent councillor Miriam Guttman-Jones also lodged a complaint. A subsequent independent investigation, conducted for the council, found that Cr Betts, irrespective of whether her conduct was deliberate, had breached the council's code of conduct and found she "should make an unreserved apology to Cr Clayton for failing to count her vote". The findings were contained in a report prepared by consultants O'Connor, Marsden and Associates and handed to Waverley Council in May. The council, however, maintains the OCM report is covered by confidentiality provisions and "any recommendation to make findings public should first be considered in closed session by the council," a spokeswoman said. But the report was catapulted into the public domain last month when Greens MP David Shoebridge filed a parliamentary motion that detailed its findings, and called on Cr Betts to issue an unreserved apology and resign as mayor.

Liberal MP Catherine Cusack fired back. She filed a counter-motion against Mr Shoebridge demanding he apologise for misrepresenting the report as "published", and called for an investigation into the consultants and the report's leakers. The matter also triggered the intervention of Tim Hurst, the chief executive of the Office of Local Government. Mr Hurst wrote to Mr Shoebridge asking him to "exercise caution before using Parliament to publicly disclose confidential information about matters being considered under a council's code of conduct". In turn, Mr Shoebridge, who described Mr Hurst's intervention as "reprehensible", filed a further motion on Thursday asking that the Parliamentary privileges committee investigate whether the actions constitute a contempt of Parliament. "In the almost seven years I've been in parliament I've never seen anything like it," Mr Shoebridge said. The Office of Local Government did not respond to a request for comment.

With parliament now in winter recess, the stage is set for a fiery debate when it resumes on August 8. In Waverley, anger over the issue prompted a 1970s style sit in at Tuesday's council meeting, which prevented council from discussing the report in a closed session. "The process allows me to defend myself," said Cr Betts. "Their process of having a sit in, denied me my democratic right to comment on a finding that should have not been made public but was." Tuesday's thwarted council meeting will reconvene as a closed session at 8am on Sunday, with protesters expected to assemble outside the council building.