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Two years after a community newsletter on the history of the Middle East sparked controversy in Brisbane, the Supreme Court has thrown out a costly penalty imposed on the Greens councillor who distributed it.
Gabba ward representative Trina Massey mailed a spring pamphlet to residents at the height of the Gaza conflict with a two-page spread titled “Khalil’s Story”.
A council ethics committee had ordered Massey to repay $10,000 and issue an apology. But the Supreme Court has now overruled that ruling.
“Today’s outcome is a vindication of my decision to challenge the investigation and the findings of the ethics committee,” Massey said in a statement.
“All of this just for speaking openly about the genocide against Palestinians and the human rights of Palestinians living in my ward.”
In the August 2024 article – which was written by academic and rapper Dr Jamal Nabulsi – the history of the modern state of Israel was framed as one of violent European colonialism on “stolen Indigenous land”.
It attracted backlash from some constituents, who said the language was inflammatory and unfair.
They criticised an attached timeline that began with Ottoman rule in the Middle Ages and did not include the Holocaust or October 7 attacks.
In December 2025, Brisbane City Council’s ethics committee – comprising three Labor and three LNP councillors – voted unanimously to endorse the recommendations of a review conducted by FairFact Consulting Services.
It found Massey breached several behavioural standards.
The report said the article was “essentially propaganda and a ‘call to arms’ for pro-Palestinian support that is not objective to the rest of the community”, and this “could reasonably be expected to make members of the Jewish community feel unsafe, victimised, and targeted”.
It rejected other aspects of the complaints, and did not describe the article as antisemitic.
Massey was required to issue a public apology in her next ward newsletter and on social media, repay Brisbane City Council half of the $20,000 cost of publication, and undertake training and counselling on the code of conduct.
She took the matter to court, arguing there was a failure of natural justice and her freedom of political communication was being impeded, among other claims.
In a judgment handed down by Justice Tom Sullivan in the Queensland Supreme Court in August but finalised on Thursday, previous findings and orders on the matter were quashed, with agreement from council.
A judgment listed several reasons why the FairFact report was “invalid and of no effect”, including that it misconstrued section 2.3 of the council code of conduct.
Brisbane City Council was ordered to pay Massey’s legal costs.
“Thanks to the LNP’s politically motivated show trial, I was subject to nearly a year of proceedings, along with death threats and attacks on my reputation,” the Gabba councillor said after the decision.
“Just three days after the Bondi attack, the LNP lord mayor relied on this ‘invalid’ report to make shameful, defamatory and untrue attacks on me.
“The Supreme Court has overturned the report and decisions of the LNP-controlled ethics committee, so I am expecting him to withdraw and apologise for those inflammatory remarks.”
The original matter will be reinvestigated by the council ethics committee, the lord mayor’s office confirmed.
Deputy mayor and LNP councillor Fiona Cunningham said in a statement the decision did not change her party’s views on the case.
“The Greens councillor for the Gabba Ward used ratepayer funds to distribute a highly biased, inaccurate and misleading newsletter that local Jewish people called offensive.
“This decision doesn’t change the fact that councillor Massey is more interested in Gaza than the Gabba, and still hasn’t apologised for making Jewish people feel unsafe.”
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and his council have held the newsletter against Massey for the two years since it was published, discussing it multiple times, including during a council debate just three days before the court decision.
“I am an anti-racist,” Schrinner said on August 25.
“I would not like to see any councillor targeting a particular group of people in our community, like your newsletter did, which targeted and made the Jewish community feel completely unsafe.”
The remarks provoked strong pushback from Massey and fellow councillor Nicole Johnston.
Massey has condemned antisemitism.
After the Bondi attack, she posted on social media: “Jewish people have a right to safety. Antisemitism has no place in our community, and this abhorrent attack is an attack on all of us.”
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