Deputy Mayor suspended for accusing colleague of ‘corruption’
Jay Iwasaki is the third councillor to be sanctioned for misconduct in the past year
Mark Phillips
Friday, March 6, 2026
MERRI-BEK Deputy Mayor Jay Iwasaki will begin a month-long suspension from office next Thursday after he was found to have engaged in misconduct when he accused a fellow councillor of potential “corruption”.
An independent arbiter has ordered the suspension following a complaint by Councillor Oscar Yildiz about internal emails by Iwasaki during council budget deliberations last year.
Following a hearing in February, arbiter Simon Heath found that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations.
Heath said the use of the word “corruption” in the first of three emails sent by Iwasaki was “unnecessary, inappropriate, inflammatory and damaging”.
He determined that Iwaski had breached three standards in the Model Councillor Code of Conduct and has ordered Iwasaki to apologise to Yildiz in addition to being suspended for a month.
Iwasaki is the third councillor to be suspended over the past 12 months following Yildiz himself and former Mayor Adam Pulford.
The matter arose from a series of emails by Iwasaki to other councillors and the council executive team which were all sent on the afternoon of June 4 last year, during internal deliberations about the four-year budget plan.
In the first email sent to 26 people, Iwasaki flagged concerns about the proposed allocation of $1,000,050 towards upgrading the car park at De Chene Reserve in Coburg, the home ground of the Brunswick Juventus soccer club, who are also known as the Moreland Zebras.
He questioned whether Yildiz had a conflict of interest and whether this could be considered “corruption”.
The arbiter found that when Yildiz replied by email that he would take legal action to defend any assertion of corruption, rather than apologise, Iwaskai instead “doubled down” on his conflict of interest concerns. He also ignored advice by then-Mayor Helen Davidson to follow internal governance processes rather than use emails to raise his concerns, Heath said.
Heath said the seriousness of the corruption claim was not mitigated by a third email in which Iwasaki attempted to clarify his concerns and withdraw the word “corruption”.
In his determination, Heath found that Iwasaki breached three parts of the code of conduct by failing to perform the role of a councillor effectively and responsibly; failing to treat Yildiz with dignity, fairness, objectivity, courtesy and respect; and by taking action that may diminish the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of local government.
Heath’s report also raises concerns about the “fractious” relationship between Iwasaki and Yildiz.
“I encourage them to avoid personal attacks,” he said.
At special council meetings on April 16 and June 23, Yildiz – who for several years was the soccer club’s number one ticket holder – had declared he had a conflict that precluded him from voting on the De Chene Reserve infrastructure works.
He resigned as number one ticket holder shortly before the emails sent by Iwasaki, but the most recent council personal interests return shows him still in the role. Yildiz is an avid supporter of the club on social media.
In his absence from voting, the financial allocation for the works was downgraded to $250,000 at the June 23 meeting when the budget was adopted by the council.
Iwasaki’s suspension will begin on Thursday after the arbiter’s determination is tabled at next week’s council meeting.
In a written statement to Brunswick Voice, Iwasaki said he had now apologised to Yildiz for any harm caused by his emails.
“My intention was to raise concerns internally about a councillor conflict of interest, and I acknowledge my concerns should have been raised in a different way,” he said.
“I will of course take the actions required of me in the report.”
Yildiz did not respond to an opportunity to comment.
Yildiz was suspended from council duties for a month last year because of a misconduct finding following a complaint by Iwasaki.
In December, Pulford – who like Iwasaki is a member of the Greens – was suspended for a fortnight after a complaint by Yildiz.
Councillors’ tit-for-tat is unbecoming
THE ongoing battle of complaint and counter-complaint between independent councillor Oscar Yildiz and some of his Greens colleagues is becoming farcical.
First Yildiz was suspended over a social media post. He has since engineered the suspension of Adam Pulford and Jay Iwasaki for varying levels of misconduct.
Brunswick Voice does not express a view about whether the punishments handed out by arbiters have been justified. Nor do we suggest that the transgressions have not been serious or hurtful to the complainants. We do note that there can be few more serious allegations towards an elected official than that of corruption, and such words should be used with extreme caution.
But the regularity of suspensions for misconduct risks making Merri-bek a laughing stock and drawing attention to the council from a state government that has not hesitated to put administrators in place at other municipalities when relations between councillors have broken down.
There is also something wrong with a local government code of conduct that can be weaponised by elected officials to damage their colleagues.
Furthermore, in some instances, the code of conduct is acting as a gag on legitimate robust political debate.
There are already laws, such as libel and anti-vilification, that exist to ensure free speech does not cross certain barriers. While there is qualified privilege to what is said in the council chamber, councillors are still bound by these laws like the rest of us.
These laws provide adequate recourse for councillors to take action when they feel they have been grievously or recklessly attacked by another councillor. While the code of conduct may have good intentions, do we really need another layer of rules which are vulnerable to being weaponised by councillors to settle scores against their opponents?
We elect politicians to have strong opinions and to argue them forcefully. It would be a sad day if our elected councillors felt they could not speak their minds because of the risk of a misconduct finding.
This story was amended with the addition of the comment on March 11, 2026.
