The NSW Information Commissioner has rejected City of Newcastle's reasons for refusing public access to information about the state of the city's inland pools.
Georgetown-Waratah Labor branch secretary Justin Davis made a freedom-of-information request to the council in August last year asking for an engineering consultant's report on the pools after chief executive Jeremy Bath decided to continue leasing the five swim centres to operator BlueFit for up to 21 years.
Wallsend Labor MP Sonia Hornery has publicly criticised the council's "privatisation" of the pools, and the issue has been controversial within the party's ranks for more than a year.
All seven Labor councillors declared a conflict of interest in the matter in May 2023 over "bullying tactics" from an unnamed politician.
Lacking a quorum, the council delegated the contract decision to Mr Bath.
The Georgetown-Waratah Labor branch passed a resolution in July saying Labor councillors had brought the party into disrepute over their handling of the pools matter.
The JWC Engineering reports on Lambton, Beresfield, Wallsend, Stockton and Mayfield pools helped inform the council's Inland Pools Strategy 2043, which includes cost estimates for improvements and long-term maintenance totalling hundreds of millions of dollars.
The council granted Mr Davis access to the JWC reports but heavily redacted them due to an "overriding public interest against its disclosure".
Most pages of the reports, including those detailing site inspections, recommended works and cost estimates, have been blacked out.
He appealed to the NSW Information and Privacy Commission, which ruled last week that the council's reasons for denying access to the redacted information were invalid.
In a non-binding decision, the IPC rejected all three of the council's justifications, including that disclosing the information would "prejudice a deliberative process of government", reveal an individual's personal information and prejudice its impartial consideration of how to manage the pools.
The commissioner found the engineer's report was "not material that can be classified as deliberative matters but are rather factual and investigative matters".
The IPC ruled the JWC employee's personal contact information was freely available online and the individual in question did not object to it being disclosed in the report.
The commissioner also found "there is no supporting information before me to explain how the information in question could reasonably be expected to cause the prejudice claimed".
In regards to the public interest test, the IPC recommended the council "also consider that the disclosure of the information could reasonably be expected to ensure effective oversight of the expenditure of public funds".
The IPC recommended the council "make a new decision" regarding Mr Davis's freedom-of-information request, but the commission has no enforcement powers.
Mr Davis can ask the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal to review the outcome of his freedom-of-information request if he remains unsatisfied by the council's response.
The Newcastle Herald reported in February that the Local Government Minister was reviewing the council's decision to continue leasing the pools to BlueFit.
Under the Local Government Act, a council must not grant a lease longer than five years without the minister's consent if there has been a submission objecting to the proposal.
The council faced criticism in July for seeking public feedback on the BlueFit decision via an advertisement in a Sydney newspaper but not in the Newcastle media.
