A local councillor in New South Wales is facing calls to resign over allegations of “relentless sexism and homophobic bullying” after he sent an email to a journalist in which he referred to a fellow councillor as a “poof”.
Allan Robinson, a councillor in the city of Newcastle, repeatedly used the homophobic slur in an email to a Newcastle Herald journalist while denying an allegation he had made homophobic remarks about the city’s deputy mayor, Declan Clausen.
“I have no problems with poofs,” he wrote in the email.
“I have one work for me and I’m very good friends with three poofs who I’m proud to say they are my friends.”
Robinson, a former jockey and one-time presenter on the NRL Footy Show, has been a councillor in Newcastle since 2012 when he was a close ally of the former lord mayor, the developer and Independent Commission Against Corruption target Jeff McCloy.
It’s not the first time he has made offensive remarks about fellow councillors. In 2015, he was the subject of an internal investigation after he referred to a fellow councillor as a “beefcake’’ during a council debate.
And earlier this week, during a council debate, he is reported to have compared a female councillor to an elephant, saying: “some people have got more hide than Jessie the elephant and look like that”, the Newcastle Herald reports.
Clausen accused Robinson of “relentless sexism and homophobic bullying”, and called on him to resign.
“I’m proud to be the openly gay deputy lord mayor of a community that had the highest ‘yes’ vote of any non-capital city in Australia,” Clausen said in a statement.
“The Newcastle I know is a welcoming and increasingly diverse community.
“Such behaviour would simply not be tolerated in any other workplace.
“If he cannot change his behaviour, Robinson should resign.”
He was responding to questions about Robinson’s comments in his email to the Herald journalist. Guardian Australia has not seen a copy of the email, but in a phone interview Robinson read out its contents in full, then repeated the term a number of times.
He then made several other homophobic remarks, while denying they were offensive.
“Why should it be offensive?” he said.
“If you’re a fucking poof, you’re a poof.”
When asked about allegations of sexism, Robinson said he had “no problem with women”.
