AHEAD of the September 4 Shoalhaven City Council election, outgoing councillor Andrew Guile has launched a controversial campaign to oust Shoalhaven Mayor Amanda Findley by dropping flyers emblazoned 'Findley has Failed' into letterboxes across the community.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Cr Findley has responded to the flyers stating they are "abhorrent" and contain "fake news". However, she said when a constituent brought the flyer to her attention, she wasn't surprised.
"It really wasn't a surprise, I just was surprised that it hadn't started sooner," she said.
"It's the same tactic that was deployed against Joanna Gash in the 2016 election. And they use Shoalhaven Independent political party so they had plausible deniability."
Read more: Gash comes out swinging about Watson claims
After spending 12 year as a councillor, Cr Guile is not running in the upcoming election. He has resided in Canberra for the last three to four years.
Cr Findley said the language used by Cr Guile in the flyers that labelled her as "evil" and "extremist" reflects the language he uses towards her and other councillors in chambers.
"This is typical of the language that Andrew Guile has used in chamber over the last nine years and its the same violent language that he used against Joanna Gash when she was also the mayor," she said.
"It's typical of how he operates and he can't accept that others have different opinions to him. And when he uses that language, he uses it with the intent to bully, intimidate and harass whoever is the recipient."
The flyer reads: "you can stop Amanda Findley causing more damage to the Shoalhaven" and goes on "at the Council election...put Findley last with all the Greens and other extreme left candidates."
It also claims that "Green's policies stop progress, punish business, cost jobs and cause bushfires" and that Cr Findley "pushed through a massive Green 30% rate increase as mayor."
Cr Findley rejected these claims, as well as the claim that she "failed to tell the CEO or Deputy Mayor she was going overseas" during the 2019-20 bushfires and "as a result could not be contracted."
"Out of all the comments in the flyer, I thought that was the most ludicrous one of all to say I hadn't informed the CEO," she said.
"That's just outrageous, the CEO of Shoalhaven City Council knows my whereabouts on a daily basis, just as I know of his whereabouts on a daily basis, because we need to be in touch in case there are emergencies.
"Even if I was on an overseas trip at any point in time in my career, I would always make sure that I had my phone with me and was able to be contacted by the CEO."
Cr Guile said he dropped the flyers into letterboxes to "let people know the truth about what's been going on in council".
"The purpose of the brochures is really to put forward to the people of the Shoalhaven what the facts are about what's been going on in this council and who the real councillor Findley really is," he said.
He stands by the claims in the flyer as truth, including his claim that Cr Findley was on holidays during the bushfires.
"That's been reported to me by both the Deputy Mayor and the Assistant Deputy Mayor at the time. And that's why you had Councillor Pakes representing council during those fires at the time."
Cr Guile will not be running for council in the upcoming September 4 election. Cr Findley believes he dropped the flyers as council's code of conduct will soon not apply to him.
"As an outgoing councillor, Guile is doing dirty work for the Shoalhaven Independents because he feels like he can act with impunity because the only avenue I can take on this is either through defamation law or through the council's code of conduct, and he knows the code of conduct won't apply after his time on Shoalhaven council," she said.
Cr Findley said it was "disappointing" to see this kind of behaviour as it is a "straight replica of the behaviour coming out of the Canberra government."
"Councillor Guile has styled himself from the Canberra bubble for years," she said.
"And styling himself as an aggressive councillor in opposition is really off putting for other people who would be considering running for council as an option for them.
"Anyone who wants to fashion themselves in that kind of way is just irresponsible. It's not good for young women in particular who might be considering a career in politics and he should be ashamed of himself.
"He professes to be a good Christian but he certainly doesn't display Christian values in the way he has written that material."
Asked further about whether he thinks this sets a good example of how councillors should behave, Cr Guile said he stands by his decision to drop the pamphlets in letterboxes.
"Councillors should talk about the facts, they should talk about good policy and bad policy and that's exactly what this flyer does," he said.
"I'm just pleased that in a democracy like we have in the Shoalhaven, even under a Green's administration, we do have the opportunity to put out the truth to let people have the opportunity to read for themselves what's actually been going on and to form their views based on that, rather than the PR spin that will come from the mayor."
Want to have your say? Send a letter to the Editor
Grace Crivellaro
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
