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Two members of a group known as the Pink Ops under investigation for corruption had a friendship that stretched back about eight years and traversed three Sydney councils, an inquiry has heard.
Former Parramatta City Council chief executive Gail Connolly and high-ranking staffer Roxanne Thornton first worked together at the City of Ryde council and became “foundation members” of a friendship group that went on holidays together since 2018, the Independent Commission Against Corruption heard.
Thornton told the inquiry into Parramatta council on Thursday she and Connolly created and jointly controlled a fake Facebook profile while at another council, and that she had once referred to herself as Connolly’s sister.
Under Operation Navarra, the ICAC is investigating the pair, along with colleague Angela Jones-Blayney, over a series of allegations, including that they intentionally subverted recruitment and promotion processes within the council in order to benefit friends and associates.
Thornton began work at the City of Ryde as the executive assistant to the general manager, who at that time was Connolly. By the time Thornton left Ryde, she was a project officer.
Thornton told the commission her relationship with Connolly was “very much of a project nature” as she worked on an office relocation project. After Connolly left the council, Thornton said she had a “mentorship-type relationship”.
When Thornton had invited Connolly, Jones-Blayney and other colleagues to a weekend away to celebrate her 40th birthday in November 2018, a friendship group had been established with the trio and several other City of Ryde staff, who collectively referred to themselves as “Pink Ops”.
“The then-acting manager was having a lot of closed-door meetings that he described as Black Ops, a need-to-know basis,” Thornton told the inquiry. The Black Ops was a boys’ club; the Pink Ops was a reference to being females, she said.
The pair soon worked together at Georges River Council, where their relationship grew closer during the “highly unusual period” of COVID lockdowns when both were deemed essential staff and in the office daily.
Counsel Assisting Joanna Davidson, SC, asked Thornton whether Connolly was a close friend by this point.
“Definitely someone who I held in high regard,” Thornton replied.
Chief commissioner John Hatzistergos clarified whether she was a close friend.
“For the purposes of the question, I will say yes.”
Thornton later added: “I would ask her for advice on different elements of some difficulties I’ve had over a number of years in my personal life.” Connolly once visited her in hospital after surgery, identifying herself as Thornton’s sister. Thornton attended some of Connolly’s family events.
At Georges River Council, the pair created a fake Facebook profile, which they jointly controlled, amid a debate about the Kogarah War Memorial Pool, which had attracted a “particular political stance that some state members had”.
In a private hearing on Tuesday, the council’s former IT boss said 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, according to a transcript released publicly late 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.”
Thornton is due to continue her evidence on Friday.
Connolly previously investigated
The inquiry also heard 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 Office of Local Government informed Connolly in September 2024 it was investigating 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 councillors over dismissed or hired senior staff; misrepresented staff exits to the council; and actively withheld information from councillors.
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. He agreed with Davidson’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.”
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
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