Lawyers for the government have called for Perth Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi to be suspended from public office for six months - saying she appears to have learned nothing from her failure to disclose gifts and travel, and describing her attitude to the subsequent censure as "contemptuous"

After the Mayor arrived during submissions at the latest hearing into her 45 serious breaches of the Local Government Act today, she was there in time for the state solicitors to ask for the mayor to be stood down.

Lawyer Carol Thatcher said that Ms Scaffidi represented the "top of the tree" of local government - and as such a message needed to be sent over the six year failure to disclose gifts, including a US$ 24000 trip to the 2008 Olympics paid for by BHP.

Ms Thatcher said Ms Scaffidi had taken no ownership or accepted any responsibility; looking to blame others while minimising the seriousness of her lack of disclosure.

"The bottom line is ... it is not appropriate for her to continue a leadership role given her shortcomings," Ms Thatcher said.

Your cookie settings are preventing this third party content from displaying. If you’d like to view this content, please adjust your Cookie Settings . To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide.

But Stephen Penglis appearing for the Mayor called for any suspension from office not to be immediate, saying the breaches were careless not surreptitious.

The SAT will reserve the decision on penalty today, with Ms Scaffidi also appealing the guilty verdicts to the Supreme Court.

She was found guilty of those breaches – of failing to disclose gifts and travel, and also failing to disclose third-party contributions to travel from corporations and governments - after a two-day SAT hearing earlier this year.

In cross-examination last week, another state lawyer David Leigh questioned the Lord Mayor on her various non-disclosures, including one she admitted – the BHP Billiton-funded trip to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 valued at over US $24,000.

Mr Leigh told the tribunal that the value of that gift was three times more than all the combined value of all the other gifts declared by Ms Scaffidi in all her other years as Lord Mayor, but was not included on her gift register.

Camera Icon Lisa Scaffidi will be suspended for six months if government lawyers get their wish. Credit: The West Australian

“(The value) is so extraordinary that if you had given a microsecond of thought about it (when filling out the annual return), it would have hit you like a thunderclap,” Mr Leigh said.

But Ms Scaffidi said she thought another council staff member had put the trip on the gift register, and she was “focused on the business of my role”.

Mr Leigh also pointed to a long list of patronages of charities that Ms Scaffidi had included in her latest witness statement to the SAT, and questioned whether they were accurate.

In particular, he pointed to Ms Scaffidi’s claimed ambassadorship of the State Library of WA, saying the only involvement she had had with the organisation was a ‘read out loud’ event she took part in 2012.

“You are not, and never have been an ambassador,” Mr Leigh said. “I accept that,” the Lord Mayor answered.

At the hearing earlier this year, Ms Scaffidi admitted to some of the Local Government Act breaches – including not declaring the BHP Olympic trip or a trip to Broome paid for by a property group that was also seeking council funding in the same year.

But she denied the others, claiming she either didn’t know she was supposed to declare the flights and accommodation, or was unaware the City of Perth had sought reimbursement for the cost of trips to destinations including Beijing, Houston, Sydney, the Gold Coast, Seoul, Japan, Spain and New York.

She has also maintained that she still did not think she had to declare travel linked to her role as a member of the Australian Press Council because it was work related.

But she also agreed that having included some of those trips in annual returns in 2010, after advice from council bosses, she then left them off subsequent annual returns.

She also agreed she had received a specific advice from former City of Perth CEO Frank Edwards that she needed to declare a trip to Japan in 2011, but had failed to do so.