On Friday 12 July 2024, I registered my interest to speak at Kiama Municipal Council’s public forum against Motion 20.3 (p.188). The motion, if succesful, will commit Kiama Council to formally referring The Bugle to the Australian Press Council regarding concerns with its ownership and reporting practices.

By Council’s own admission, this motion is based entirely on rumours it is yet to provide any evidence to support.

With two hours until the meeting began, I was informed by CEO Jane Stroud that I had been refused my right to speak based on the potential for myself and Kiama Councillors to damage the ongoing complaints handling process into their conduct.

I was disapointed and confused as to why I had been rejected based on a hypothetical scenario, especially considering I had gone out of my way to write my speech in a way that abides by all of Council’s policies.

After directly appealing to Jane Stroud to reverse her decision, I was informed that my appeal would not be considered as I had publicly disclosed the reason for the initial rejection.

Regardless of Kiama Council’s continued attempts to police the voices of the community, I will publish what I had planned to say if I was allowed to speak at the public access forum on 15 July 2024.

As I’m sure Councillors are aware, I was the senior journalist at The Bugle but have not worked there since March 2024. I have no allegiance to my former employer, but as a lifelong Kiama resident and professional journalist of 8 years, I’m in a unique position to be able to speak out against this motion.

This motion, as well as Motion 19.3 from the 21 May 2024 meeting which brought us here have nothing to do with transparency or accountability from local media.

While both of these motions are disguised as genuine questions regarding the potential for bias, Kiama Council failed to provide any context as to its own conduct and the complaints it has received from The Bugle since its change of ownership in April 2023. 

The motion passed on 21 May stated that its purpose was to foster a constructive relationship between The Bugle and Kiama Municipal Council.

How does referring The Bugle to the Australian Press Council over these frivolous concerns translate into a constructive relationship?

These issues have been presented to Kiama Council as complaints, and as such, it wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss in this forum as the complaints handling process continues. 

However, I don’t need to discuss these issues publicly, given that Councillor Croxford has proven the motives behind this current motion through his ongoing use of social media, including referring to his dissenters as “lazy”, “uninformed” and “insignificant mental pygmies”.

I have included some of the highlights of this conduct for Councillors (see below). What’s particularly concerning is Councillor Croxford’s repeated leading questions, asking “Who is pulling the strings behind The Bugle.”

It implies existing misconduct based on rumours without providing any actual evidence. The equivalent would be if The Bugle published an article titled “Who is pulling the strings behind Councillor Croxford?”

I’d like to remind everyone that the 21 May motion was passed four days after The Bugle called for Mayor Neil Reilly and CEO Jane Stroud to apologise for instigating the invalid censure of Councillor Renkema-Lang. Rather than even attempting to reflect on its actions, Kiama Council ramped up the existing pressure on The Bugle, which has led to the embarrassing situation Council will find itself in if it passes this current motion.

In my opinion, rather than focusing on its precarious finances, Kiama Council’s modus operandi is to shift blame to everyone else, from unions to the Greens Party, to Councillor Renkema-Lang, and of course, The Bugle.

To the remaining Councillors who haven’t committed to this frivolous crusade against The Bugle yet, I’d like to ask why you think The Bugle hasn’t responded to the pressure Council is heaping on it? Rather than taking any criticism onboard, Kiama Council instead labels this content as “anti-Council.” Kiama Council seems particularly aggrieved by The Bugle’s “Blow Your Bugle” column.

The column is an outlet for the community to voice their concerns. If there were any submissions that would be what you would consider to be “pro-Council”, they were published. But during my tenure, we only received about two or three of these comments.

By passing this motion, Kiama Council will in essence attempt to police the thoughts of the community, not just the Bugle’s staff who work and live here.

It’s also more than likely to drag Kiama Council into another long and expensive legal battle, which I, nor any of you want to see happen again.

I’d ask you to please reflect on your own actions and consider this could be the reason for what you perceive to be “anti-Council” content before assigning blame to local media.

To CEO Jane Stroud, I’d like to ask if you could expand on the complaints Kiama Council has made to various media authorities, press councils, and The Bugle up until March 2024. Why is it only now appropriate to make this referral a public motion when Kiama Council has been aware of who owns The Bugle since at least April 2023?

I’m hoping that by voting against this motion, this can be a turning point for Kiama Council where the blame game ends and everyone starts taking accountability for their own actions, rather than pointing the finger at everyone else.

To reiterate, these are my opinions only. I don’t speak for The Bugle. I am doing this because I want to see my local representatives finally take some accountability.

Thank you for your time and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.