Darwin Mayor Kon Vatskalis has escalated his blood feud with councillor Amye Un, filing a formal complaint against her with the Local Government Association of the NT – a body he is the president of – for public comments she made criticising a Labor Government grant.

Ms Un last week alleged she was being bullied and intimidated by Mr Vatskalis and Darwin council chief executive Simone Saunders for criticising Small Business Minister Paul Kirby awarding former alderman Paul Arnold a $100,000 small business grant after he had been issued with a domestic violence order. She had suggested the grant be broken into smaller grants for other small business owners who have been struggling.

Ms Saunders wrote a letter to Ms Un requesting she remove the post in which she had also called Mr Kirby a “zombie” and informed her she was in breach of the council’s code of conduct. However, neither Ms Saunders or Mr Vatskalis would say if a complaint had been filed about Ms Un’s Facebook comments.

Ms Un said it was the second time the council pair had threatened her with disciplinary action over false accusations, following Mr Vatskalis’s unfounded claims in a letter last September that Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta had filed a complaint against Ms Un for making him “uncomfortable” during a visit to Darwin last September.

Instead of producing either complaint, documents show Mr Vatskalis on Friday flipped the script and filed his own complaint against Ms Un with the Local Government Association of the NT (LGANT) alleging that Ms Un was the bully.

He also claimed she was using social media to threaten Ms Saunders.

Mr Vatskalis wrote in his complaint that Ms Un had written a separate Facebook post days after her first post about the grant in which she “further goes on to threaten the CEO, saying ‘you stab me at the back, I stab you in the front'”.

“Councillor Un then followed up with another post calling on the CEO to resign,” Mr Vatskalis wrote in his complaint.

“…She is using social media to bully and intimidate the CEO into not performing her functions …”

Mr Vatskalis also repeated previous claims that Ms Un was attempting to solicit a grant from Mr Kirby and had violated conflict of interest rules when she wrote, “Now on I like to make friends with Mr Paul Kirby and other ZOMBIES, so I can get the Grand to [sic]”.

He claimed Ms Un showed “low levels of integrity” by allegedly trying to solicit a grant and also accused her of spreading “false information” and leaking “copies of confidential internal correspondence” from Ms Saunders.

Ms Un again refuted the claims and said Mr Vatskalis taking the unusual measure of filing his own complaint was just another part of the concerted campaign against her.

“Election’s coming up and they try to intimidate me so I shut up,” Ms Un told the NT Independent.

“Because they’re Labor and they always attacking people, you know. I’m very honest and I stick to the people.”

Ms Un said she had contacted the NT Working Women’s Centre for support and said council had become a “toxic workplace”.

“For so long no one of women standing up and speaking out because scared to lose their job, but now time to open up,” she said.

“Who you think you are Kon?”

LGANT is the peak body for local governments in the NT which provides “advice and support” for local governments in different areas, including “code of conduct breaches”. It is unclear what powers it has for reprimanding elected officials but it is understood it could recommend a conciliation process for Mr Vatskalis and Ms Un.