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Leaked emails show a recruiter tasked with finding a new Redland City Council CEO raised conflict of interest concerns before he quit, citing what he saw as significant internal issues.
The respected recruiter, Mark Ogston, was brought in to assist the council with finding a new chief after the former CEO had left unexpectedly in September 2024, just months after new mayor Jos Mitchell started at the council.
In an email sent on November 7, 2024, Ogston explained to then-executive group manager of people, culture, and organisation performance Amanda Daly – essentially the head of human resources —that he had not included her in an email containing confidential information about candidates because he believed “there is a potential conflict of interest risk”.
Emails show Daly, who was chairing the recruitment panel, was the main point of contact for the recruitment process.
Ogston said there was information that would not be appropriate for potential employees of the new CEO to know, and noted there were internal candidates with whom Daly was already a peer.
“The majority of my candidates have expressed concern about staff member’s involvement in the selection process after I’ve advised them about the panel’s constituents,” Ogston wrote.
This masthead does not suggest those on the panel did, in fact, have a conflict of interest or that they failed to manage potential conflicts.
A trove of heavily redacted emails from the process, released through a right to information disclosure in 2025, provide some insight into what happened next.
Two days after Ogston wrote to Daly, someone within council emailed another redacted address – on a Saturday – saying the mayor had not released the documents to the full panel.
“These documents are required as a matter of urgency and I will work with our records team to recover these documents from the council records system,” they wrote.
A flurry of emails followed, many of them almost fully redacted. One, again from an unknown person at council to other councillors or workers, said Ogston should “provide the full list and all the information that has been repeatedly requested by the relevant council officers charged by council to manage this process”.
On Monday, Ogston wrote to quit.
“I have been overseas this weekend without access to my email and have just logged in and found this email chain relating to the recruitment project,” he said.
“It’s clear to me that council’s internal issues are significant and we have decided to withdraw from the process.”
Ogston declined to comment when contacted for this story.
Following Ogston’s departure, the council hired a new recruiter, but the panel construction remained the same, except for one change.
In the second round, a council officer named Micah Beaumont, acting in Daly’s position after she had left the council, chaired the recruitment panel.
Joining Beaumont on the panel was the mayor, deputy mayor Julie Talty, and two external members.
Beaumont’s substantive role was executive assistant to the CEO, a role he had performed under acting CEO Louise Rusan, a candidate for the role, who would eventually get the $500,000 gig under unusual circumstances.
Shortly after Rusan’s appointment, photographs emerged of her with Daly, Beaumont, the former CEO Andrew Chesterman and another member of the council’s executive team, Chris Isles, at a social gathering before the recruitment process began.
In one of the photographs, Daly is holding up a white shirt with the words “shit show supervisor” printed on the front. Beaumont and Rusan, then the acting CEO, are leaning in and smiling.
Email chains previously reported on by this masthead show Rusan was not picked as one of the two preferred candidates by the panel who would then present to the council.
After the top two candidates presented, emails show councillors requested to hear Rusan in a closed-door meeting that appeared to break council policy about when decisions can be made.
The change of process troubled long-term councillor Wendy Boglary, who wrote to the council’s audit and risk committee heads seeking advice about “how to manage the impending risks associated with this recruitment process”.
“Given this was strongly driven by a councillor, deputy mayor Julie Talty, it could be perceived as political influence, which, in my opinion, undermines the principles of good governance,” she said.
New emails obtained by this masthead show Beaumont attempted to defuse the situation after Rusan had presented to the council, and said the council hade received legal advice on the matter.
“There has been some concerns raised that having a third candidate present is a departure from the proper process,” he wrote.
“I want to assure councillors that this is not that case and it is not uncommon for a decision maker in a recruitment process to hear from other candidates in the pool.”
A week later, councillors voted to choose Rusan as the CEO. One councillor, Paul Bishop, attempted to abstain from the vote over what he would later call “governance concerns”.
In that meeting, which the mayor attended via videolink from Paris, where she was on sick leave after a council of mayors’ trip, sounded exasperated, but supported the appointment.
Responding to questions from this masthead on Monday, Mitchell said the vote happened in the early hours of the morning and she was extremely sick.
“I had to make a decision based on the information I was provided at the time. I had requested that the meeting be held before I left or after I returned but that was not supported,” she said.
“I did have concerns through the recruitment process and those concerns are recorded.”
A council spokesperson said the recruitment was consistent with the Local Government Act and followed the process approved by councillors.
“The external legal service provided guidance on perceived conflict of interest matters relating to the recruitment process,” they said.
Talty, Daly, Beaumont and Rusan did not respond to questions.
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