Blanco’s council ban as SAT finds he committed ‘serious breach’ in failing to apologise for brothel comments

Former Town of Port Hedland councillor Camilo Blanco has been barred from holding a council position for two months after it was found he had failed to comply with a State Administrative Tribunal order. Despite the “disqualification ... from holding office as a member of a council” — which will run until February 5 — he told the North West Telegraph on Monday that he still wanted to make a pitch for council again in the hotly anticipated March 28, 2026 Town of Port Hedland election. The Town of Port Hedland commissioners are due to decide on Wednesday whether to appoint the Western Australian Electoral Commission to conduct the 2026 Extraordinary Election via postal vote. Details of the timing of nomination closures are yet to be revealed, however, the WAEC confirmed to the Telegraph that if a candidate was disqualified from holding office under any provision — including a temporary ban at the time of close of enrolment — they would be ineligible to nominate. Mr Blanco believes the timings will allow him to run again, adding he believed the sanctions against him were a result of the “Labor party trying to get rid of its critics”. “If I’m in a position to put my hand up again in March, I will definitely will be doing that,” he said. Mr Blanco was censured by the SAT in July 2024 for comments he made at the November 2023 ordinary council meeting accusing the town’s administration of turning a blind eye to alleged evidence a home massage parlour in town was operating as a brothel. He was ordered to apologise for the comments, but in a subsequent, long-running and complicated tribunal saga, he argued that he believed what he had said was true and so had no intention of apologising. He also argued that he did not find out about the order from SAT that he apologise until was too late for him to comply. Those arguments failed to sway the panel, and the latest SAT decision surrounding Mr Blanco’s initial “minor breach” of the Local Government Act found he had committed a new “serious breach” by not complying with the previous order from the body. “It is noteworthy that a failure of a person to comply with the order of a panel is considered to be a serious breach even when the orders made by the panel were in respect to a minor breach,” the decision reads. Mr Blanco’s attempts to “frustrate” the town’s ability to correct his statements regarding the brothel “cover-up” by his “deliberate defiance of the order of the panel” and his “deliberate rejection of the standards of behaviour Parliament required of councillors indicates he might well repeat such conduct should he ever again be a councillor” were also factors the tribunal considered when looking at the seriousness of his behaviour. The issue of whether Mr Blanco will be ordered to pay the town’s costs in relation to the SAT process are set to be considered at a later date, if the local authority chooses to apply for them before December 29.