Tweed councillor Kimberly Hone accused her fellow councillors of negotiating preference deals with an unnamed Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) member. She was subsequently expelled from the Tweed Shire Council chamber after she refused to retract her remarks. Now, The Echo has been provided with comments from the man The Echo believes Cr Hone was referring to – planning academic at Bond Uni, Ned Wales.
And with Cr Hone seemingly having made unsubstantiated claims around the matter, thus far she has refused to address the public record as laid out by Tweed Council.
The Echo asked her to address three of her claims, yet she did not reply by deadline.
They are firstly that the Mayor expelled her; secondly that her actions were allowed under new legislation; and thirdly that ‘Councillors did preference deals with Planning Panel members’. The first two claims are factually incorrect, according to the public record.
Cannot recall
As for preference deals, Mr Wales told The Echo he cannot recall preference deals at the time of the 2024 Tweed Council election.
He ran with Kimberley Lloyd as independents, and he was unsuccessful in gaining a seat.
He said, ‘270 people voted for me’.
Regarding his 2026 role with the NRPP, Wales said, ‘As panel members, we have no contact with councillors, only panning staff and state government officials. Our vote is only two – the state government have three.
‘I was appointed to the panel in 2009, and have been reappointed over the years, because of my industry expertise in planning.’
Mr Wales rejected any wrongdoing and said he was surprised at the accusation by Cr Hone.
Mr Wales was one of four members appointed to Tweed Council’s Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) on 5 June, 2025.
Correcting the record
According to publicly-available council minutes, and a webcast and the NSW legislative record, provided to media by Council, two of Cr Hone’s claims appear completely unsupported.
The following are Hone’s claims:
- ‘The Mayor expelled Cr Hone.’
The public record states the expulsion was a resolution of the elected Council, carried four votes to three. The Mayor, as chair, took the step the Code requires — calling on Cr Hone to withdraw and apologise — before the vote occurred.
2. This was a ‘brand new rule brought in by the Mayor’.
The public record states a revised Model Code commenced on 1 January 2026 that would have let a chair expel a councillor without a vote. The NSW Legislative Council disallowed that code on 26 May 2026, restoring the 2021 Model Code. Council formally readopted its 2021-based Code at an extraordinary meeting on 2 June 2026, and an interim state regulation preserving the same framework commenced on 26 June 2026. The mechanism used on 16 July — a vote of councillors — is the one that has applied for years. The unilateral, chair-only power some accounts described had ceased to exist seven weeks before the meeting, and was not used. Conduct at council meetings is governed by each council’s Code of Meeting Practice, which must incorporate the Model Code prescribed under section 360 of the Local Government Act 1993.
3. ‘Councillors did preference deals with Planning Panel members.’
Tweed Shire Council has said it was not aware of any preference deals between Tweed councillors and members of the Northern Regional Planning Panel.
National attention
Subsequent to Cr Hone being ejected, and escorted by police from the chambers on July 16, she and her husband – an evangelical pastor – sought to capitalise on the issue, claiming freedom of speech was at stake. Over the years, Cr Hone has cultivated a somewhat polarised persona as a political figure.
Within days, footage of the removal had reached national audiences through federal figures, including populists politicians Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson.
Cr Hone took her grievances to social media in multiple videos, the first was being escorted politely from the chamber by the police officer (a visible, moralised harm). She told her followers she was punished for speaking her mind (a threat to free expression), and accused the mayor of using her position to silence a critic (a threat to institutional legitimacy).
Cr Hone posted a series of Facebook videos soon after leaving the meeting, saying she had been ejected ‘because we are no longer allowed to say what we think or feel’ and describing the process as ‘a brand new rule brought in by the Mayor’. Her husband, Wez Hone, posted separately, calling it ‘typical behaviour of the loony left’ and adding, ‘we have a mega phone called the internet’.
His post drew roughly 9,500 reactions, 1,500 comments and 1,400 shares – more engagement than any of Cr Hone’s own four posts.
MP Barnaby Joyce shared it to his own following within about four hours. Joyce wrote that Cr Hone had been removed ‘not because she was violent, swearing, yelling, but merely asking questions and disagreeing with Labor and the Greens Party’, and framed it as a case of ‘the political elite enforcing what they see as the entitlement of enlightenment’.
His post drew about 22,000 reactions, 5,400 comments and 3,300 shares. Pauline Hanson also shared the footage, writing, ‘This is what happens when the left take over councils. They shut down the lone voice who dares to challenge them and have them escorted from the chamber by local police. Outrageous!’ Her post drew about 2,900 reactions, 771 comments and 160 shares.
Council’s own corrective material reached a fraction of that audience. Two posts from Mayor Chris Cherry drew a combined 379 reactions and 36 shares. A Council Facebook post recorded 21,695 views, 262 reactions and 16 shares; a Council Instagram post recorded 676 views. The full meeting recording, including the exchange itself, has been publicly available on Council’s webcast portal throughout.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
