THE long-running politically-charged battle over the City of Newcastle's management of inland pools - involving claims of secrecy and pro-privatisation - has turned another corner.
The council has come under fire for repeatedly denying access to information about the state of Newcastle's five inland pools, and how much repairs and upgrades might cost.
In the latest twist, the NSW Civil and Administrative Decisions Tribunal has backed the council's decision to deny a Freedom of Information request detailing costings, methods and designs for proposed repairs and maintenance of the pools.
The request came from Justin Davis, the Labor Party's Georgetown-Waratah branch secretary, who appealed to the tribunal, asking it reconsider the council's decision to reject his call for transparency.
But tribunal senior member Michelle Riordan ruled against Mr Davis, supporting claims by the council's chief financial officer David Clarke that to release the information would impact the council's ability to get value for money on "current and future tenders".
It would jeopardise the council's ability to obtain "the best value tenderer" during the procurement process and/or negotiate with potential tenderers, Mr Clarke said.
Mr Davis told the tribunal he could not see an issue in releasing the information, since the council had contracted the pools' management to the private sector for 21 years.
"Is it that the council don't want business knowing the assets are in a worse state than the glossy inland Pools Strategy suggest," he said in his statement, quoted in Ms Riordan's judgement handed down on Wednesday (October 16).
Mr Davis argued that the asset condition reports he sought contained details about the "actual condition" of the inland pools and what works need to be done to remediate them and there was significant public interest in that information.
A confidential tribunal hearing was held in late August during which the contents of the unredacted documents were aired, and the tribunal's decision was reserved until Wednesday.
The management of Newcastle's five inland pools - Lambton, Mayfield, Beresfield, Wallsend, and Stockton has been a source of contention for years.
The council required approval from the Office of Local Government Minister to continue leasing the pools to BlueFit due to objections raised.
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 - in this case, there were 13 objections.
The council faced criticism, too, for the fact that in seeking public feedback on the BlueFit decision, it advertised in a Sydney newspaper but not in Newcastle-based media.
The issue has also fuelled in-fighting within Labor Party.
In June, 2023, Wallsend Labor MP Sonia Hornery publicly accused "cowardly councillors" of focusing too much on "silly vanity projects".
By then the Labor party had been at war for more than nine months over the Labor-led council's plans to offer long-term contracts to private operators running its five inland pools.
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.
Mr Davis went to the NSW Information and Privacy Commission about the council's reluctance to release documents in full which ruled in March that the council's reasons for denying access to the redacted information were invalid.
The council was asked to review its decision and it conducted an internal review, and then a second review, releasing more details each time but not the full and unrestricted access Mr Davis sought.
