The council CEO, his friend in Japan and the letters to the editor

He's opinionated, controversial and, invariably, thinks he's in the right.

For almost a decade Neylon, who sometimes curiously misspells his surname as Neylan, has been a contributor to the Newcastle Herald's barometer of public opinion: the letters to the editor page.

A person by the same name has also submitted views to online media outlet Crikey and former NSW premier Bob Carr's blog, Thoughtlines.

Mr Neylon's letters to the Herald comment about the goings on in Newcastle in great detail. Hunter Water, clean coal, V8 supercars, council controversies, Stockton beach, Newcastle Ocean Baths, East End residents and the Newcastle Maritime Museum are all isses Mr Neylon is compelled to write about.

The tone of his letters is often critical; his offerings indicate Mr Neylon has a keen interest in Newcastle politics, that he reads the Herald, and is not afraid to call out what he sees as injustices or take on critics.

He is also a big supporter of City of Newcastle.

But who exactly is Scott Neylon?

A Herald investigation can reveal that despite his strong interest in the Hunter, for almost three decades Mr Neylon has been living and working in Japan as an English teacher.

A long-term expat, he studied at Griffith University in Queensland, used to live in the Gold Coast, and appears to have spent more time living in Japan than Australia.

He is married to a Japanese woman, and according to a list of his teaching experience from his company's website, has been teaching in Japan since at least 1998.

So why the interest in Newcastle, and why this heightened level of attention to detail about local politics?

What we do know is that Mr Neylon is a close friend of City of Newcastle chief executive Jeremy Bath, after the pair met decades ago, before university.

They're so close that Mr Neylon is listed on the electoral roll as living at Mr Bath's Lake Macquarie address. The same address is also listed as the "satellite office" for Mr Neylon's Japanese-based company.

The subject matter of Mr Neylon's letters also appears to follow Mr Bath's career progression.

When Mr Bath changes jobs, Mr Neylon changes the subject of his letters. His first letter to the Herald, when Mr Bath was working at Hunter Water, supported the authority in a dispute with Merewether residents about who should pay for connection to the sewerage system.

In recent years, following Mr Bath's appointment to CEO of City of Newcastle, the subject of Mr Neylon's letters have turned to more civic issues.

Mr Neylon, or Neylan, has submitted 18 letters to the editor since 2014, the last one earlier this month. Not all of them were published.

Within his letters are a host of inconsistencies, some of them plainly wrong, including declaring in February 2017 that he lived next door to Mr Bath, then just weeks later claiming he lived on the other side of Mr Bath's house.

According to the writer, over the past ten years he's moved eight times throughout Newcastle. He's lived at three different addresses in the same suburb in Lake Macquarie, then Mayfield, Mayfield West, back to Mayfield, Waratah and for the past year claims to have been living in Stockton.

It's a long way from Japan, where Mr Neylon's Facebook posts consistently depict him living with his wife since he began publicly posting in 2011. He does not appear to have children.

In an email response to questions on Friday, Mr Neylon said he lived between Australia and Japan, traveling for work purposes.

"When I'm in Australia I spend the majority of my time in Newcastle," he said.

"Keeping up to date with what's happening in the city is as easy as reading the Newcastle Herald online most days.

"I always stay with Jeremy and his family when I'm home. He's never asked me to write letters to newspapers and on a few occasions has suggested I give up the hobby."

The string of discrepancies in Mr Neylon's letters to the Herald don't stop with the geographic locations. Mr Neylon's descriptions of his life are contradictory and often incorrect.

In one letter, Mr Neylon purports to have a teenage child. In another, he is a pensioner who spends his days at City of Newcastle pools with his grandkids.

The Herald could find no pictures of him, as he describes in another letter, standing "arm in arm" with Stockton residents at a protest over loss of sand from the beach.

And despite his letters repeatedly detailing his passion for Newcastle's V8 supercars race, and clear dislike of "whinging" East End residents, the Herald could find only one photograph online placing Mr Neylon in Newcastle. It's a picture of a pie at Harry's Café de Wheels posted in April 2016.

In a telephone call on Wednesday, Mr Neylon told the Herald that he was at a train station in Japan and couldn't talk.

When asked if he was contributing letters to Australian publications he paused and then responded: "Argh, I do occasionally".

"Sorry it's been quite a hectic period at the moment," he said. "I can't actually speak right now."

He agreed on a time to speak to the Herald on Thursday, but despite repeated calls, the number never answered.

In his emailed response, Mr Neylon said he loved "a punchy letter and am quite chuffed when my letters get published".

"I've always used my real name, my real email address and my real mobile phone number," he said.

His response sidestepped the issue of why he used the name Neylan and failed to address the numerous inconsistencies in his correspondence over the past decade, including the suburbs where he claims to have lived and why he describes himself as a pensioner with grandkids.

It is not in doubt that Mr Neylon's letters seriously mislead. It could also be argued he is excessively solicitous of the career of Mr Bath.

The 47-year-old describes himself in 2017 as having a 16-year-old daughter, then last month, as he extols the virtues of City of Newcastle pools, says he is a pensioner.

"They are cheap as chips and a bloody good day out for our grandkids," Mr Neylon writes about council's pools.

"The staff are lovely, the water always clean, and for pensioners like us, just about the only all-day activity we can afford."

He signs off by taking a parting swipe at Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery, who has publicly been a scathing critic of City of Newcastle's handling of its pools.

"Give it a rest Sonia and get on with reopening Wallsend Police Station like you promised you would," he writes.

Mr Neylon's most recent five letters to the Herald, four of which attack Ms Hornery, have arrived by SMS from an Australian Optus mobile number.

Previous letters have arrived by email or by filling out a form on the Herald's website.

A search of the IP addresses indicate at least one of the letters has come from within Australia and the person submitting them appears be using an virtual private network (VPN) to hide their location.

As the very public stoush over the future of the council's pools rages between Ms Hornery and City of Newcastle, and the task of dealing with the controversy is delegated to Mr Neylon's good mate Mr Bath, the Japanese expat's letters don't hold back in taking aim at the Wallsend MP.

A letter on March 29 accuses Ms Hornery of "making excuses about her inability to deliver" for the region.

Just days later, on April 12, Mr Neylon writes Ms Hornery is "doing her level best to ensure Newcastle continues to miss out on funding from the NSW government".

"It was fantastic to see the Labor members for Newcastle, Swansea, Charlestown, Maitland and Port Stephens in the Herald last week vowing to fight for a fairer share for Newcastle," the letter reads.

"I couldn't help but notice the State Member for Wallsend was missing from the photo. Enough said."

Mr Neylon is not a paying subscriber to the Newcastle Herald.

His attack on Ms Hornery continues in May, when Mr Neylon details in another letter how she "stopped me on the street asking me to sign a petition" in 2015 to have the Wallsend police station reopened.

"Now that the Labor party is in government, the petitions have stopped, and Sonia seems to have lost her political courage," he writes.

A month later, the subject of Mr Neylon's letters turns to council's pools.

"For the better part of 12 months the only time I've spotted Sonia Hornery in the Herald has been to complain about local pools," he writes on June 28. "I can only assume she's never visited one."

As the public pool debate continues, and Mr Bath faces widespread criticism for his handling of the matter, Mr Neylon's attention shifts to another vocal critic of City of Newcastle, former councillor and Restore Newcastle Maritime Museum working party spokesman Bob Cook.

In another timely coincidence, just days after Mr Cook sent an email on July 5 to Mr Bath and councillors informing them he had made a complaint to the Local Government Minister about their handling of the pools, Mr Neylon takes aim in another letter.

"It's been six years since the Newcastle Maritime Museum went bust," he writes on July 11.

"A few years ago former councillor Bob Cook was in the Herald promising to save it. Since then nothing seems to have happened. Can the Herald ask some questions and find out what Bob's plans are?"

In response to questions, Mr Bath said he had never asked or suggested Mr Neylon send a letter to anyone.

"Like most friends we don't always agree on politics, and the same is true for the content of his letters,' Mr Bath said.

"Scott splits his time between Australia and overseas and when he's back he always stays at my place and shares my postal address for mail and bills."

Tracking the link between Mr Bath's career and Mr Neylon's letters dates back to 2011 when Mr Bath was working as a media relations manager for ClubsNSW.

At the time, Mr Neylon submitted opinions to Crikey and former NSW premier Bob Carr's blog about poker machines.

"Shame on you Bob. Haven't you done enough to clubs during your reign in NSW?" he wrote on Mr Carr's blog.

Throughout 2014 as Mr Bath was busy working as a public affairs manager for Hunter Water, his friend submitted his first letter to the Herald.

In it Mr Neylon describes himself as a Hunter Water "customer" and urges the authority to "stand firm" in its battle with Newcastle residents over the cost of connecting their homes to the sewerage system.

"Dear Hickson Street residents, As a customer of Hunter Water, how dare you expect me to help pay the cost of building the pipes to connect your very lovely homes to the sewerage system," Mr Neylon writes. "As you well know, the $75,000 cost of the pipes will add at least that to the value of your property ... If Hunter Water is offering to pay the cost up front and allowing you to repay it over time, then I suggest you take the deal before they have a change of mind."

On the same day as Mr Neylon's letter arrived, the Herald published a story quoting Mr Bath dealing with the dispute.

Mr Neylon's letter echoes the sentiments expressed by Mr Bath in the news article.

"As these properties were purchased unsewered, Hunter Water has made clear to the residents that the responsibility for connecting to its sewerage system lies with the property owners themselves," Mr Bath said.

"For Hickson Street residents, land values are undoubtedly high, but they nevertheless would increase further by connecting to the Hunter Water sewer network. It is because of this potential improved land value that Hickson Street residents should bear the cost of that connection rather than having Hunter Water's existing 250,000 customers pay for the sewer connection cost via their own water bills."

In early 2017, when Mr Bath was working in Sydney as a campaign manager for corporate strategy firm Crosby Textor, also known as the CT Group, Mr Neylon began writing about the advantages of clean-coal technology.

According to a 2019 investigation by The Guardian, CT Group teams in Sydney and London devised "Project Caesar" for Glencore mining to use social media and traditional media messaging to promote coal, attack renewables and create a false link between solar, wind and rising electricity prices.

Project Caesar began in early 2017, when Mr Bath was working for CT Group, and Glencore, which spent millions bankrolling the project, confirmed its existence.

"Bravo Newcastle Herald for putting common bloody sense ahead of this notion Australia alone can save the world by killing off coal," Mr Neylon wrote to the Herald in February 2017.

"We are the coal capital of Australia, let's embrace clean coal and the opportunities that come with it."

A month later Mr Neylon congratulates then federal Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon for taking a trip to Japan to investigate clean-coal technology.

"The green lobby have been predicting batteries would replace coal since before my daughter was born, and she just celebrated her 16th birthday!" he wrote.

More letters echoing Mr Bath's career progression follow.

After Mr Bath was appointed chief executive of City of Newcastle in December 2017, the subject of Mr Neylon's letters turn to supporting the council.

A Herald article in August 2019 described Mr Bath as "frustrated" at the Newcastle Maritime Museum's lack of progress in finding a permanent home and detailed the council boss' "three-week ultimatum" to either donate its collection to the council for display or resume full control of the items.

Around the same time another letter arrived from Mr Neylon.

"The Maritime Museum went bust, has nowhere to exhibit its collection, nowhere to store its 7500 items, no money to employ professional staff, no money to market the exhibition, and no way of paying off the debts racked up by the old committee," he wrote.

"And yet Bob Cook says he's not happy with council? If I was a part of this group I'd be over at the council chambers today with a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolates and the world's biggest thank you card."

The trend then continued with Mr Neylon backing the council on everything from its controversial move to new offices in Stewart Avenue, to supporting Mr Bath and Labor Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes following criticism by residents.

"As I've gotten older I've noticed I sometimes need to read articles twice in the Newcastle Herald to understand them," Mr Neylon writes in August 2021.

"Well I've read the story three times about former Greens councillor Therese Doyle's complaint against the council boss Jeremy Bath and I still can't make head nor tail of it ... I often wonder why the Herald continues to give such prominence to the residents of the East End. They never have anything good to say about our beautiful city and now it appears they have resorted to sulking about the Lord Mayor not supporting their complaint."

While steadfastly supporting council, including Mr Bath and Cr Nelmes, Mr Neylon's next series of letters, among the most recent, turn the blowtorch on other Labor politicians including Ms Hornery, Federal Member for Newcastle Sharon Claydon and State Member for Newcastle Tim Crakanthorp.

"Here at Stockton with water from the ocean literally pooling in our front yard last week, the best the Federal Member for Newcastle could manage was a letter to the Deputy Premier," he writes in an unpublished letter on April 9 last year.

The Herald verifies submissions to its letters to the editor page by telephone, with writers required to provide a name, suburb and phone number when contributing. Herald editor Lisa Allan said the verification process would be reviewed.

Do you know more? Donna.page@newcastleherald.com.au

IN THE NEWS