May 21, 2026 — 2:58pmFormer City of Parramatta chief executive Gail Connolly was investigated by the local government watchdog in 2024 over allegations of misconduct and had council staff use their personal email addresses to co-ordinate a response to the probe, the ICAC has heard.The Office of Local Government (OLG) informed Connolly in September 2024 it was investigating a range of allegations about her potential failure to comply with the Local Government Act, including that she restructured the council without approval; increased staff salaries for personal gain; wasted council funds; failed to consult with councillors over dismissed or hired senior staff; misrepresented staff exits to the council; and actively withheld information from councillors.The letter was shown in evidence at the ninth day of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s public inquiry into Connolly and two other staff, Roxanne Thornton and Angela Jones-Blayney. The inquiry saw an email sent from head of people and culture Brendan Clifton’s personal email address to the personal email addresses of Connolly and another HR professional, Sarah McAskill, with a “proposed draft” response to the OLG’s inquiry.Personal email addresses were used for council business “quite commonly” under Connolly’s leadership, Clifton told the inquiry on his third day of evidence. He agreed with Counsel Assisting Joanna Davidson SC’s propositions that he was “regularly instructed” by Connolly not to communicate with her in writing.He said Connolly was concerned about her communications being accessed under freedom of information laws and by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, as well as a worry that her emails were being accessed by the council’s head of IT, John Crawford.The commission saw a text message exchange between the two where Clifton provided Connolly with advice on how to turn on deleting messages in a WhatsApp group for council executive staff in order to avoid messages being found under the Government Information Public Access (GIPA) Act.At 9.32pm on January 31, 2025, Connolly texted Clifton: “Do you want me to delete your work phone from the WhatsApp group and put your home phone instead?”One minute later, he responded: “Yes. That would be a better option if yr concerned about requests for info.”The next day, he added: “You prob already known [sic] this, but, you can put a time limit on messages within whatsapp so any message you post is deleted after xx days. That way if anyone witj [sic] a work number is gipa’d to produce chat history there won’t be any historical info (obviously it doesn’t reduce any screen shot risks).”“Yep,” Connolly replied. “I think it’s just Jon [Grieg, executive director] and Jen [Concarto, executive director] and [John Angilley, executive director] work phones in there now. AJB [Angela Jones-Blayney] uses her personal one for most stuff – and the others don’t post anything. But it’s a good idea to turn it on.”Roxanne Thornton arrives at the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Thursday.Sitthixay Ditthavong‘Pink Lady’ next witnessClifton will be cross-examined by a legal representative for Connolly following the commission’s lunch break. Roxanne Thornton, one of the three senior staff named in the ICAC’s investigation will give evidence next.She is being investigated over allegations she, in addition to Jones-Blayney, subverted recruitment and promotion processes in order to benefit her friends or associates. In Counsel Assisting Joanna Davidson, SC’s opening address, she said Thornton was part of a group known as the Pink Ladies who holidayed together and sent tens of thousands of WhatsApp messages.Her attendance comes following evidence given by Crawford, the former IT head, that she had confided in him that she’d twice plagiarised an assignment while completing the Australian Institute of Company Directors course and that Connolly had covered it up.“The first was using AI to submit … an assignment,” Crawford said in a private hearing before the commission, the transcripts of which were made public on Wednesday. “The second time was … where she took [council colleague James Smallson’s] assignment that he’d given her as a guide, and she then basically reworded a minority of it and submitted it.”More to come.Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect via X or email.From our partners