SIMMERING personal tensions within the Bathurst Regional Council chamber have spilled over as two councillors clashed during a heated debate over a new social media policy on Wednesday night.
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Councillors Jess Jennings and Alex Christian traded insults in the most public display yet of their long-standing animosity towards each other.
Cr Jennings asked council to write a letter to NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller seeking clarification on whether some social media posts by Cr Christian, a serving police officer, met the force's standards while Cr Christian labelled Cr Jennings a hypocrite, a disgrace and "lower than a snake's belly".
The pair continued trading barbs across the chamber floor as debate on the proposed policy ended and mayor Bobby Bourke attempted to quieten them to allow the issue to go to a vote.
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Most debate centred on whether the new policy for councillors should bar them from making "offensive" comments in social media posts with Cr Christian leading a push to have the term removed from the policy, but it took a far more personal turn when Cr Jennings rose to speak on the matter.
Cr Jennings started by saying the draft policy before councillors was "about being decent" and that anyone who supported the push to remove the word "offensive" from the document "fundamentally misunderstood the concept of free speech versus the term offensive".
"If you don't understand how to be decent or why you should be decent then you probably shouldn't be in this chamber," he said.
Cr Jennings then took issue with some of Cr Christian's past Facebook posts, particularly one earlier this year where he referred to the media as "vermin".
Cr Jennings asked acting general manager Allan Cattermole if it was council's position that "the media we work with every day are vermin" and then asked the council to write to Commissioner Fuller asking "for a ruling as to the acceptability of calling the media vermin".
"Is it acceptable to misrepresent others, to publicly abuse others or openly contradict policy of the organisation and does a conflict of interest exist in being a councillor and police officer?" he asked.
Given his chance to respond, Cr Christian did not hold back, accusing "holier than thou" Cr Jennings of hypocrisy for quoting Voltaire's "I may not agree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" before launching his assault on Cr Christian's Facebook postings.
"Did it look like that was his case tonight, wanting to shut me down, wanting to cancel me?" he asked.
"No, so that's where him and I are directly opposed. I like my ability to speak freely and have an opinion on things and call other elected officials out on hypocrisy, for example.
".. I am probably by far the most passionate person in this room on issues. I listen to what our ratepayers have to say, I fight for what they want and if I have to take any in this chamber on over that then I'll do it."
Cr Christian said his reference to the media as vermin related to reports in the national media that he said created division with regard to Australia Day.
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