A Sydney Councillor who was found by a tribunal to have vilified her gay neighbour over a rainbow flag he flew from his apartment has lost her appeal against the ruling.

Julie Passas, a councillor in the inner city Sydney suburb of Ashfield has been fined $2,500 after a court found she had vilified a gay neighbour when she complained about his rainbow flag.

Passas, who serves on the Inner West Council and is a former Deputy Mayor asked her neighbour to remove his rainbow flag on the day the marriage postal survey vote was announced in 2017.

She told neighbour Daniel Comensoli, who lives in a neighbouring unit in an apartment complex, that his flag was offensive to her culture and religion.

Passas told Comensoli that he should not be able to get married”until you could breastfeed and have children”.

He also claimed Ms Passas began lobbying among others in the building to have Mr Comensoli and his housemate evicted. When police visited the home of Ms Passas after Comensoli complained, she was reportedly overheard saying “the rainbow flag was as offensive as the flag of ISIS”.

Passas denied making the comments, and said she had made the comment about ISIS as an analogy. Last year the tribunal found she had vilified gay people through the actions and she was ordered to pay $2,500 – substantially less than the $10,000 Comensoli had originally sought.

Passas appealed the decision from the tribunal, but this week they upheld the decision and ordered her to proceed with the payment and public apology.

The defendant had argued that the outcome of the process was harsher than it should have been because she was a local government councillor. The tribunals two person review panel ruled that it was reasonable to judge that the comments held greater weight because of Passass’ position.

They did allow her to slightly change the wording of the apology, removing a section which suggested she had yelled at Comensoli, which was an element that had been disputed during the proceedings.

Councillor Passass told the media she was disappointed with the outcome of the proceedings but she would abide by it’s finding.

OIP Staff