Darwin Alderman Amye Un says threats of disciplinary action by Council’s CEO and Mayor Kon Vatskalis for publicly criticising Labor Minister Paul Kirby and former alderman Paul Arnold on social media, is an attempt to “intimidate” and silence her.

On Friday, Ms Un posted a link to a news story on her personal Facebook page about former alderman Paul Arnold receiving a $100,000 NT Labor Government small business grant to expand his photography business just weeks after being issued with a domestic violence order.

Ms Un, a Timorese native, criticised the grant in her post, in which she questioned why Mr Arnold would receive that much money and why it wouldn’t have been split up to give to more small businesses and called Mr Kirby a “zombie”.

“Why have to be Arnold only,” she wrote. “So that way so many small business be shuts down, because NO HOPE (sic).”

“NOW ON I LIKE TO MAKE A FRIEND WITH Mr Paul Kirby and others ZOMBIES, so I can get the Grand to (sic)…”

Ms Un was sent a letter by Council chief executive Simone Saunders on Monday indicating she had breached the alderman code of conduct for the post.

But it was unclear if anyone had actually made a complaint.

The letter, seen by the NT Independent, requested Ms Un remove the post and suggested she may have breached the Local Government Act code of conduct, specifically referencing the perception of an “actual or perceived” conflict of interest by suggesting she would befriend Mr Kirby to obtain government grants.

Ms Un told the NT Independent she did not “need any penny from him” for her small business and had raised the issue because the small business community has been struggling. She was not provided with a copy of any complaint.

She said the letter from Ms Saunders was meant to “put me in the corner and say ‘shut up Amye'”.

“I think they try to intimidate me,” she said in an interview. “Don’t open your mouth for the politician in Darwin. But I am the one continuing the voice of the people and I don’t like to hide something because my people is my boss.

“I have to stand up for them, I have to be honest.”

Ms Un said she had requested any complaints in a meeting with Mr Vatskalis on Monday but that he had failed to provide any.

Mr Vatskalis denied he and Ms Saunders were bullying Ms Un on Mix 104.9 Tuesday morning and was upset she had raised the issue in the media.

“I’m very disappointed in Councillor Un going to the media and making a story out of no story,” he said.

“First of all Councillor Un was never bullied.

“I consider that totally unacceptable for an elected member to call a Minister of the Crown – doesn’t matter who it is – a zombie.”

Mr Vatskalis added that by then suggesting she would make friends with the “zombie” to obtain government grants, a potential conflict of interest was raised.

“People can perceive that’s actually, there’s a conflict of interest there, because you asked for $10,000 to be given to business, does that include your own business?” he said.

Ms Un did not appear to ask for money in the Facebook post.

Mr Vatskalis’s perceived conflicts with Chinese Communist Party never addressed

Ms Saunders did not respond to a request for comment.

Darwin Council media also did not say if Ms Saunders had sent Mr Vatskalis a letter about his own perceived conflict of interest.

The NT Independent revealed in June that Mr Vatskalis appeared to believe his wife running the Confucius Institute at CDU would be politically damaging for him, threatening legal action against a private citizen for raising the issue with council in 2020.

However, it was revealed in internal university correspondence in June of this year that Ms Yu-Vatskalis was named the director of the Chinese Communist Party-linked Confucious Institute at CDU earlier this year, raising fresh concerns about the Mayor’s repeated dealings with Chinese government officials.

He refused to comment on the apparent conflict of interest and whether his “cooperation agreements” with numerous cities in China were compromised.