The Scott Neylon letter controversy has become another weapon in the long-running war raging within local Labor party ranks.
City of Newcastle Labor councillors on Tuesday night passed a 1500-word motion committing to an independent investigation into Mr Neylon's links with council chief executive Jeremy Bath.
The resolution also attacked Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery for "waging a campaign against councillors via the media for nearly a year now likely in order to influence internal Labor party disputes" and expanded the scope of the investigation to include "how confidential electoral roll details about council staff and their friends and family came into the possession of journalists".
Non-Labor councillors supported the elements of the motion related to the Neylon investigation but rejected other dot points they regarded as "unprofessional" and "muddying the waters".
At the same time as councillors were meeting at their Newcastle West headquarters, deputy lord mayor Declan Clausen and fellow Labor councillor Elizabeth Adamczyk were attending the annual general meeting of Labor's Wallsend State Electorate Council.
The SEC meeting discussed, among other things, a proposal by Wallsend branch members loyal to Ms Hornery to set up a new branch in the growing Fletcher area.
The Newcastle Herald understands the proposal, supported by Ms Hornery, was inspired in part by broad unrest and accusations of bullying within the existing Wallsend branch. It is understood the SEC meeting ended without resolving whether it would support the proposal.
Last week, the Georgetown-Waratah Labor branch, which sits in the Wallsend electorate, passed a resolution saying Labor councillors had brought the party into "disrepute" over their handling of a decision to extend contracts awarded to a private operator of the city's five inland pools.
The resolution also "calls on them to avoid further embarrassment to themselves and the ALP by assuming the responsibility they accepted as elected representatives of the people of Newcastle and to govern, including being accountable for the decisions concerning the future of our pools".
"The meeting does not call on the councillors to be honest with the electorate because such a call would seem impossible to be heeded," the resolution says.
The motion noted that Ms Hornery opposed privatising the pools' operation and had been re-elected this year "with 85 per cent of the vote".
The increasingly ugly dispute between Ms Hornery and at least some Labor councillors has included accusations and counter-accusations of bullying, cowardice, vanity and recklessness. Party sources say the tensions stem, in part, from Cr Clausen's desire to inherit the seat from Ms Hornery, who has held Wallsend for 16 years.
The Herald has been told that at least one other councillor also has designs on the seat.
Ms Hornery is 61 but has given no indication yet that she will retire at the next state election in 2027, when she will be 65.
Given she is the most popular Labor MP in NSW, the seat is hers as long as she wants it, especially given it is highly unusual, and frowned on, for anyone to challenge a long-standing MP for party pre-selection.
Cr Clausen said last month that he had "always worked to support Sonia, even prior to becoming a Labor member".
On Tuesday night, when he joined the City of Newcastle meeting, Cr Clausen said it was "impossible not to recognise that there is a very serious gutter political campaign afoot that does require investigation".
The Herald reported on Saturday that the subjects of Mr Neylon's letters to the editor over almost a decade appeared to follow Mr Bath's career progression from ClubsNSW to Hunter Water to City of Newcastle.
Mr Neylon, who has lived in Japan for almost 30 years, is close friends with Mr Bath and is listed on the electoral roll as living at Mr Bath's Lake Macquarie address.
Mr Neylon says he stays at Mr Bath's house when he is in Australia and Mr Bath has never asked him to write letters to media outlets. Mr Bath denies influencing Mr Neylon's letter-writing.
Four of the Neylon letters this year have been scathing of Ms Hornery, while others have criticised Newcastle Labor MPs Tim Crakanthorp and Sharon Claydon, who have both faced past attempts from within the Labor party to undermine their positions.
Mr Crakanthorp said on Wednesday that he supported an independent investigation into "the whole muddy episode", especially given he was a target of some of the letters.
Ms Claydon has also expressed support for an investigation.
The next election on the agenda is the local government vote in September next year, when Labor's internal struggles could take yet another turn.
The Herald has been told a rival left Labor ticket could challenge councillor-aligned senior officers at the annual general meeting of the party's Newcastle local government committee on Sunday.
Labor councillors could face contested pre-selection next year.
Party sources say the mooted local government committee stoush, the split in the Wallsend branch, Ms Hornery's very public attacks and the Georgetown-Waratah condemnation amount to broad rank-and-file anger over the Labor-led council's record on development, pools, Supercars, moving the council offices, South Newcastle beach skate park and other issues.
