Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliot has been suspended for two months after a Code of Conduct panel found she breached several standards through her social media activity.
The ban is scheduled to begin next week. The panel determined Elliot breached four parts of the Code of Conduct, specifically regarding causing offence, undermining council decisions, bringing the council into disrepute, and failing to show respect. Two other alleged breaches were dismissed.
The suspension follows a complaint filed by Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds in June 2025, relating to several Facebook posts Elliot published between February and May of that year.
One contentious post included a historical document dated December 4, 1967, regarding the Lord Mayor’s parents, Henry and Margaret Reynolds. The document stated that Henry Reynolds’ application to join the Communist Party was rejected while he was a student at the University of Tasmania and suggested the couple would likely join the Australia-USSR Society in 1968.
Elliot paired the document with a comment stating, “The Greens are today’s communists, but with many more men in dresses and young girls with double mastectomies.”
The panel concluded the post was an attempt to cause political harm to Lord Mayor Reynolds by association and sought to infer that the Mayor and her mother were members of the Greens. In a witness statement, Margaret Reynolds said she was “shocked” and felt Elliot had “exploited” her and her husband’s names.
As part of the ruling, Elliot has been ordered to apologize to Margaret Reynolds for causing “embarrassment and offence.”
Dispute Over Political Speech and Moderation
Elliot defended her actions as “fair political commentary,” asserting that the document she shared was publicly available online and not confidential. She described the panel members as “unelected, contracted bureaucrats that act as the speech police” and accused the panel of bias.
The panel also cited Elliot’s failure to promptly moderate offensive comments from followers, including one that described the Lord Mayor as “a grub” and others referencing her appearance. The hearing heard that Elliot had been “hiding” some offensive comments rather than deleting them, though she later agreed to delete the relevant posts.
Furthermore, the panel found that Elliot’s criticism of certain council decisions was “misleading” and “inflammatory,” which could lead the public to view the council as “dysfunctional.”
Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds welcomed the outcome of the independent process. She stated that Hobart residents deserve a council that can debate tough issues without resorting to personal attacks or “online pile-ons,” emphasizing a need for a “basic standard of respect and accuracy.”
The panel’s decision relied on a 2024 Tasmanian Supreme Court ruling which found the Local Government Act does not require panels to consider the implied freedom of political communication. Elliot has reportedly lodged a Federal Court appeal on this point and has called on Local Government Minister Kerry Vincent to intervene, claiming the current system impacts democracy and human rights.
Elliot stated she will continue to post on social media “as a ratepayer” during her suspension. She has the right to apply to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a review and is expected to return to her council duties at the end of June, ahead of the local government elections in October.
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