Who wrote it? Dispute over rejected council notice of motion

The notice of motion, which called for the suspension of the CEO and the immediate release of the full report into Mr Bath's connections with Newcastle Herald letter writer Scott Neylon, has been rejected by City of Newcastle.

Mr Bath's claim comes after metadata from Cr Wark's notice of motion to the February council meeting shows 'bob cook' as an author of the document.

Mr Cook denies writing the notice of motion and Cr Wark said she wrote it. They both said Cr Wark sent Mr Cook the document for his reference, which he then forwarded to her phone to submit to the council as she was having internet issues.

The council's executive director corporate services David Clarke rejected the motion after deeming it "would be unlawful in regard to CN's obligations" under the GIPA Act 2009.

The council has previously said it was required to consult with relevant parties to comply with legal obligations before releasing the investigation report.

Cr Wark's notice of motion called for the suspension of Mr Bath "until the original accusations can be thoroughly investigated and an evidence-based report provided to councillors" and for the CEO's performance review and remuneration to be laid on the table until a report on the investigation is prepared.

After the motion was rejected, Mr Bath wrote to Office of Local Government deputy secretary Brett Whitworth about the matter, including a screenshot of properties from a Word document of Cr Wark's motion.

Mr Bath's letter said the motion's metadata said 'bob cook' under authors. It said the metadata was consistent with correspondence sent to the council by Bob Cook.

"It is therefore plausible that the NOM submitted in the name of Councillor Wark was authored by the complainant of the investigation (Bob Cook)," Mr Bath said in the letter.

"Mr Cook is the complainant of the dismissed code of conduct complaint against me."

The letter stated that as Mr Cook was not a councillor, any breach of the code of conduct could not result in disciplinary action.

But it asks the Office of Local Government to advise Mr Bath "of what powers it has available to ensure that Mr Cook is unable to take detrimental action against me as a local government employee, in reprisal for his dismissed code of conduct complaint".

In a statement to the Herald, Mr Bath said "after six months of falsely accusing me of authoring letters by my friend Scott, Bob Cook has now seemingly been caught red-handed authoring a letter in the name of Councillor Katrina Wark".

"It literally took all of one minute for the properties of the word document to reveal Councillor Wark's letter had been authored by a person calling themselves 'bob cook'," he said.

"It's clear that there is a close working relationship between Katrina Wark and Bob Cook... it needs to be placed on the public record immediately.

"This declaration will be required given on Tuesday councillors will be asked to consider approving a sizeable lease to continue storing the Newcastle Maritime Museum Society's collection. Bob Cook is of course the president of this organisation."

Both Mr Cook and Cr Wark strongly denied that Mr Cook wrote the notice of motion.

Mr Cook said Cr Wark consulted him among others over wording.

They both said Cr Wark had supplied a final copy to Mr Cook before submitting it.

She said she was in hospital and planned to submit the motion from her laptop, but was having WiFi issues so asked Mr Cook to text it to her so she could submit it from her phone.

"It had to be in by 5pm, so I was starting to panic," Cr Wark said.

Both Cr Wark and Mr Cook said no changes were made between the versions they exchanged.

"It was all my idea," Cr Wark said. "I wrote the motion. Other people made contributions, but I wrote it.

"I had been telling people for weeks I was going to submit it."