Updated ,first published
Sydney’s south-west council by-election has descended into chaos after police were called to the polling booth amid a dispute between a councilor and a candidate.
The row came a day after the Liberal Mayor of Liverpool City Council accidentally posted a Labor MP’s home address on Facebook criticizing the situation that led to the south ward by-election. was prompted by the resignation of deputy mayor Betty Green in January.
Liverpool Liberal councilor Richard Ammoun and independent by-election candidate Jamal Daoud were seen shouting at each other in the by-election at Casula Community Center on Thursday afternoon.
Daoud, who ran as an independent candidate for the Werriwa seat in last year’s federal election, claimed he was called a liar by Ammoun alleging there was corruption in the council, and that a Liberal party supporter said in Arabic “your father is a son of a bitch”.
An election worker inside then called the NSW Police, Daoud and other witnesses confirmed.
“I needed that moment to say a few bad words about him,” Daoud told them Herald on Thursday afternoon. “It’s not bad, but I said ‘Shut your mouth’, or something like that. You can’t talk about my father like that, especially (because) he’s a dead man now.”
Ammoun said Daoud was lying about the existence of corruption in the council.
“He was just saying things that were not true to the voters, I tried to correct him,” Ammoun said. “He started calling me names in his native language. I remained calm, even when the police were there.”
Daoud is now wearing a body camera for the last few days of the campaign.
A NSW Police spokeswoman said they were called in relation to the claim and left without incident.
The old address of the Member of Parliament of the State has been posted online
The incident is the latest surge in the 24 hours before Saturday’s vote, which will return the council’s roughly 82,000 residents to the polls.
On Wednesday night, Liberal Mayor Ned Mannoun posted an unusual 3 minute 50 second video on Facebook showing him sitting in front of a billboard with the faces of his political opponents attached with a pin and piece of string, discussing the “cold, hard truth” about the council.
For about three seconds, while Mannoun was talking about donations to the Labor Service Union, an image appeared on the screen of an election donation disclosure form that revealed the undisclosed addresses of Liverpool MP Charishma Kaliyanda and Green.
Kaliyanda, a former Liverpool councillor, said it was “cheating”.
“I’m getting advice about my options,” he said. “Does this mean I need to move? What does this mean in terms of safety and security measures that I need to put in place for myself and my family?”
Kaliyanda later confirmed that he had not lived at the address for several years, but in a separate statement said he was concerned about his safety.
Mannoun stopped short of apologizing for sharing the data in the video but said: “I’m sorry that a publicly available document was published.”
The people whose addresses were shared were not named in the video, and the size of the portion captured could not be read, Mannoun said. On Thursday morning, he removed the video and re-uploaded it with the blurb.
Mannoun said he plans to post more social media content about the saga. “Wait for my next video,” he said.
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EXPLANATION
This story has been updated after Labor MP Charishma Kaliyanda confirmed she no longer lives at the address Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun made public.
Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect through X or email address.
