Minister says he 'won't intrude' in Jeremy Bath investigation 'squabble'

Shadow minister for the Hunter Scott Farlow asked Mr Hoenig in budget estimates on Wednesday if he agreed with Wallsend Labor MP Sonia Hornery that Mr Bath should be sacked.

"It's not for me to pass an opinion," Mr Hoenig replied.

"When the issue came to me, I sent it to the lord mayor of Newcastle and it was for them to make whatever determination they make.

"It's not for me to judge performances."

The council-commissioned investigation by Pinnacle Integrity found there was insufficient evidence to support allegations Mr Bath had contributed to his Japan-based friend Scott Neylon's letters to the Newcastle Herald.

The misleading letters attacked council critics, including Ms Hornery.

Mr Farlow asked Mr Hoenig if he was satisfied with the investigation given the investigator did not contact the Herald before clearing Mr Bath and the consultant's report had not been made public.

Mr Hoenig said "all these secret code of conduct hearings", especially those relating to councillors, were "quite bizarre", but council staff were "entitled to their privacy ... and discretion".

"Generally speaking, about these code of conduct examiners and the way in which the system has been operating, requires pretty urgent ... well, requires some review," he said.

Asked if he would work with the council to ensure the investigation report was released publicly, he said: "I'm not going to intrude in people's local squabbles.

"I'm not going to be told by people to make political decisions that aren't right decisions to do."

Mr Farlow also questioned Mr Hoenig about whether council staff were correct in ruling out a motion from Liberal councillor Katrina Wark last month calling on the investigation report to be released and for Mr Bath to be suspended pending a second investigation.

Mr Farlow said Mr Bath had issued a media release alleging Cr Wark's motion had been written by Bob Cook, a former councillor who has crossed swords with the council over the future of the Newcastle Maritime Museum collection.

"Do you think that's acceptable conduct from a general manager of council to issue press releases against his own councillors?" Mr Farlow asked Mr Hoenig.

"These councils have adopted policies - I don't know whether Newcastle council has, there's 128 of them -that makes general managers the spokesman on behalf of councils and try and restrict other councillors from making public statements," Mr Hoenig said.

"And those things are always fraught. If you start putting the general manager up as a council spokesman instead of the mayor, you'll always end up with the general manager being criticised.

"Whether that's the case in Newcastle or not, I don't have enough knowledge to be able to judge."

City of Newcastle's media policy says the lord mayor is the council's official spokesperson and "the CEO can also act as CN's official spokesperson".

Office of Local Government deputy secretary Brett Whitworth interrupted the exchange between the two MPs to say he was "very uncomfortable with this conversation because it's impinging on a code-of-conduct process and it's also making a number of assertions that I don't believe to be the case".

"The general manager did not have an involvement in the decision about whether the notice of motion was unlawful, and I don't believe that the general manager issued a media release but was in fact contacted by the media as a result of a confidential piece of correspondence to myself being made public," he said.

Mr Bath supplied a statement to the Herald on February 22 after his letter to Mr Whitworth was leaked to reporters.

"After six months of falsely accusing me of authoring letters by my friend Scott, Bob Cook has now seemingly been caught red-handed authoring a letter in the name of Councillor Katrina Wark," Mr Bath's media statement said.

Both Cr Wark and Mr Cook denied Mr Cook authored the motion.