A webcast of the monthly ordinary meeting began at 6pm as scheduled but some councillors were delayed entering the online Zoom call.

After a few minutes of silence, Mr Bath entered the meeting but both he and the five councillors already online thought the webcast was yet to begin as the lord mayor and a handful of other councillors were yet to appear.

Those online began chatting with independent councillor Allan Robinson holding court for about 10 minutes.

In a jovial conversation, Cr Robinson revealed he had received both his vaccination doses, his wife was cooking salmon for dinner and he was eager for a local company to upgrade Newcastle Ocean Baths.

With meetings being held remotely during COVID-19, Cr Robinson was at home in his kitchen and could be seen eating garlic bread before the conversation turned to the main meal.

"I'll eat here Michelle because this [meeting] is about to start," he said to his wife as she prepared dinner off-screen.

"Michelle's cooking tea tonight," he then told the CEO and other councillors online at the time.

"What have I got tonight?"

Michelle replied: "Salmon."

"Salmon, you beauty!" Cr Robinson responded, pleasingly clapping his hands.

As the conversation went on, Mr Bath realised the meeting was live and quickly cut in on Cr Robinson as he was talking.

"Robbo ... Robbo... um, I think we are live-streaming at the moment," he said.

"So ah ... yeah, so um ... you are speaking to the masses."

Robbo responded: "That's perfect, you will be able to see my wife's beautiful salmon here in a minute."

The council has since cut the pre-meeting exchange from the video recording posted on its website and YouTube.

An edited video of the chat was posted on the fkn_newy Instagram page on Wednesday and has had more than 30,000 views.

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