UPDATE: In the original broadcast, the program reported Bob Baldwin, the Federal MP for Paterson, had been revealed by ICAC to have received illegitimate financial support from developers. This is incorrect and the ABC apologises unreservedly to Mr Baldwin for any offence or hurt caused.

Ann Arnold: Up the hilly motorway from Sydney, just north of Newcastle, there's growing discontent with some of the deals being done. Developers and businesspeople who've become more widely known after adverse mentions by the Independent Commission Against Corruption—names such as Nathan Tinkler, Darren Williams and Hilton Grugeon—have been working with the Mayor of Port Stephens Council to 'get things done'.

Bruce MacKenzie: I make things happen. I do things. I'm not just a figurehead. I'm a very active, hands-on mayor. People come to me with minor problems, I get off me backside and do what I can to help everyone, from the richest to the poorest.

Ann Arnold: But Mayor Bruce MacKenzie is upsetting people too. He's seen to be pushing projects through with little consultation, leading questionable tender processes, and being, well, less than polite.

Kate Washington: No one has seen fit to hold him or anyone to account. Instead, intimidation, abuse and disrespect has become par for the course in Port Stephens.

Ann Arnold: This is the state member for Port Stephens, Kate Washington, in the NSW Parliament in August.

Kate Washington: I must apologise for the un-parliamentary language that I'm about to use. Recently, a wheelchair bound constituent complained to me that the Mayor called him a 'spastic fucking arsehole' at a public function…

Ann Arnold: Complaints about the Mayor's language are not uncommon. He's the local sand baron, with his business Macka's Sand and Soil Supplies. Mayor MacKenzie has proposed an increase in the number of sand trucks on a local road. In July there was a public meeting to discuss safety concerns. The Mayor listened to proceedings from a doorway at the back of the hall. Local resident Cane Gorfine says he was near Bruce MacKenzie when people were asking questions.

Cane Gorfine: And when those people stood up to raise their questions, I heard the Mayor Bruce MacKenzie say things like 'oh don't let that fucking idiot stand up', 'don't let that bitch stand up and have her say, get her out of here', 'they're just a fucking troublemaker, piss em off', things like that. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I was standing there with my 12-month-old son and hearing the Mayor Bruce MacKenzie talk in such a disgusting way about members of his own community who had genuine concerns.

Ann Arnold: How loud was it? Who else would have heard it? Anyone but you?

Cane Gorfine: It was loud enough for anyone within one or two metres to hear him. But, you know, I submitted a complaint, a code of conduct complaint to the council.

Ann Arnold: The complaint was dismissed because the meeting was not convened by the council, and the Mayor was not there on council business.

Bruce MacKenzie: What I said was the guy said that trucks are coming out of our sand pit and turning right, and I said, 'If they blah, blah, blah, turning right, they will be bloody stopped.' I didn't abuse him.

Ann Arnold: With the Mayor were some men in high-vis workwear. After the meeting, Bruce MacKenzie and the men stood outside as people left. Rob Rowsthorne, a Labor supporter who runs a pet boarding kennel, was carrying a sound speaker out of the hall.

Rob Rowsthorne: When I left the meeting I walked past Bruce, and I've always had a good relationship with Bruce, and I said, 'Thank you for coming along to listen to the community.' He said, 'Don't say thank you to me.' I went, 'Okay.' The next thing I was met with from him was, 'How are the trucks affecting you, you fucking grub.' I was a bit taken aback. I was carrying a sound speaker in my hand. I said, 'Bruce, that's not the way that a Mayor of Port Stephens should speak to constituents.' And he said, 'I don't fucking care, go to your home.'

Ann Arnold: Rob Rowsthorne wrote a statutory declaration about the experience. That doesn't bother Bruce MacKenzie, who denies the claim.

Bruce MacKenzie: I'm not worried about the stat decs. Then I've seen a letter to say that I was a threat to the local member. What a joke. Bruce and his henchmen, or Bruce and his truckie thugs. What a joke. My grandson and two other innocent people were standing there.

Ann Arnold: But 'That fucking idiot.' 'That bitch.' 'What are they doing here?'

Bruce MacKenzie: No, I didn't say that.

Ann Arnold: What…

Bruce MacKenzie: I didn't say 'that bitch'…

Ann Arnold: You were heard saying things like that.

Bruce MacKenzie: I did not say that. I never said one word. I stood at the door…

Ann Arnold: About people who were standing up and making comments?

Bruce MacKenzie: Mate, I never said…I never made a comment in the doorway. I stood at the doorway all night and listened. Come on. I didn't say that.

Ann Arnold: Do you feel that you are respectful enough of your community?

Bruce MacKenzie: Totally. I work my butt off for my community. The detractors and the jealous people and the people that want to pull me down, they invent these things. I never said one word. I never said one word leaning up against that door all night.

Kate Washington: In relation to the Mayor's attitude that he gets things done, I have heard that from people, but it is only from those people that he chooses to work with.

Ann Arnold: MP Kate Washington.

I'm Ann Arnold, and in this Background Briefing, we're investigating how a mayor can push through his agenda, whether the community wants it or not.

Kate Washington: It's been like we've been operating under a bit of a boys' club for some time. If you're a part of that club, that's well and good. If you're outside the club, you've got no chance of getting things through or done that you might like to see done.

Ann Arnold: It goes beyond local government. When Kate Washington was elected for Labor in the March state election, she broke a pattern of Liberal Party politicians dominating all three levels of government in the area. The previous state member Craig Baumann was revealed by ICAC to have received illegitimate donations from developers.*

At the local council level, there's a strong development agenda. Mayor Bruce MacKenzie has a substantial property portfolio. He's also led the council into significant investments, which he says bring in excellent revenue. All the more reason to have developers sitting on councils.

Bruce MacKenzie: If a developer sticks to the rules and doesn't try to influence his developments, why shouldn't he be on it? He can bring something to it. You can't tell me that if I hadn't been here, Port Stephens Council would have these investments. If I hadn't have been on council, there was no way in the wide world they would have those investments. I'm proud of what I've done, and if you call me a developer, so be it, who gives a bugger?

Ann Arnold: But there's growing disenchantment, says the new MP Kate Washington, with how politics and business mix in this area.

Kate Washington: I think people's eyes have opened to what's been happening in Port Stephens for so long.

Ann Arnold: And what is that?

Kate Washington: Long-standing, endemic, systemic relationships with developers that have been put before the interests of the community.

Ann Arnold: There's currently controversy over a development in a public park, in Raymond Terrace. And an entire new town proposed for rural Wallalong came before ICAC last year, because the developers had allegedly made disguised political donations. Both the Raymond Terrace and Wallalong projects involve developer Hilton Grugeon.

This program will look in detail at the awarding of a lucrative sand-mining lease.

But the hands-on, can-do approach of the Port Stephens Mayor is well illustrated in micro at the local horse park.

This is a place close to Bruce MacKenzie's heart, a horse-riding park at Salt Ash, near his home. It's called the Bruce MacKenzie Complex. Not only is it named after him, he's also the chairman of its grounds committee.

It's a public park, used by numerous horse clubs, in a scenic country setting. Recently, someone dumped tonnes of soil there. The dirt has concrete chunks and other debris in it, and has since been tested for contamination. None was found.

MP Kate Washington:

Kate Washington: People are trying to determine exactly what it's been dumped there for, but we understand that it's because the Mayor has indicated that he would like to see a BMX park there.

Ann Arnold: And yes, that's exactly what happened.

A big pile, or several piles of soil have arrived unexpectedly there in the car park. Did you deliver that for this purpose?

Bruce MacKenzie: No, I did not deliver it.

Ann Arnold: Did you get it delivered?

Bruce MacKenzie: I got it delivered for that purpose.

Ann Arnold: The Mayor confirmed that purpose was a BMX bike track. He said the soil came from a council road project.

Should you have checked with other users of the park about whether to drop all that soil there?

Bruce MacKenzie: I didn't tell them it was coming there at the time, because we had to get rid of it.

Ann Arnold: Bruce MacKenzie says he's meeting a need of young people in the community.

Bruce MacKenzie: Because I had a visit one day from about eight young kids, and they wanted a BMX track, so I got off my backside and I'm going to build them a BMX track.

Ann Arnold: Did you consult any of the other people who use the horse park about that?

Bruce MacKenzie: Yeah, I did. We didn't carry a resolution, but I spoke to them about it.

Ann Arnold: Bruce MacKenzie says he didn't need a formal resolution from the voluntary committee at the horse grounds, the committee that he chairs, because Port Stephens Council could override them anyway.

Bruce MacKenzie: And if the committee didn't approve it, I would have put it straight to council, because we can override the committee, because the horse people do not own that land, and as far as I'm concerned, some youngsters at Salt Ash, instead of knocking little old ladies down and burning cars and committing suicide, I'm going to provide them with something to do of a weekend, i.e. the BMX track. Full stop. No questions asked. It's going to bloody happen.

Ann Arnold: According to a Port Stephens Council spokeswoman, there has been no development application for the BMX track.

Horse park users won't speak publicly. But they are worried about the risks of bike riders using the same areas as horses.

State MP Kate Washington:

Kate Washington: BMX bikes and horses aren't a good mix, and when you're dealing with young children on horses, it would just potentially be disastrous. That's why development applications are important because those sorts of assessments are made in the process. When things are done regularly without that kind of scrutiny and approval process at play, this is what we see.

Ann Arnold: It's not just the BMX track. The Mayor's roles on both the council and the horse park committee have overlapped on financial issues as well. Bruce MacKenzie doesn't see a conflict of interest.

In Council, do you vote on matters concerning the sports ground? The horse park?

Bruce MacKenzie: We don't have many things here, but I do, because to me, being Chairman of that, and I've done so much work there personally with a fence, and my plant equipment to put the fence up, and spreading fertilizer on it, and things like that. The only interest I've got is to make it the best horse ground in the Hunter Valley, which it is.

Ann Arnold: But I think there's a rule that that is supposed to be a conflict of interest, if you have a strong involvement in a local club.

Bruce MacKenzie: If it is, it is. I don't give two hoots. If that's going to jeopardise my career in local government, so be it.

Ann Arnold: Did you approve Section 94 Council Funds of $100,000 to be given to the horse park?

Bruce MacKenzie: Totally and absolutely.

Ann Arnold: And what was it for?

Bruce MacKenzie: We built a new arena. An all-weather arena for the dressage.

Ann Arnold: Did you then supply the soil and build the horse park for that soil?

Bruce MacKenzie: I think we provided a bit of sand.

Ann Arnold: Having allocated $100,000 of council money for the dressage arena, the Mayor's company, Macka's Sand and Soil, then took on some of the work, billing the horse park $5,000 for sand, and $26,000 for the grading work.

Is it appropriate, and especially in terms of public perception, for a councillor, but especially the Mayor, to be voting to spend council funds, and then bill basically those same funds, invoice for those same funds to your own private company?

Bruce MacKenzie: I can do a better job, and it would have been a cheaper job for me to do it on behalf of the horse grounds than the bloody council staff.

Ann Arnold: The sand-dunes stretching back several kilometres from Stockton Beach have been a source of wealth for Bruce MacKenzie. He grew up in the area, left school at 14, and is the main sand miner in a region that supplies Sydney and beyond.

He also put in a bid to Port Stephens Council for a proposed new sand mine, in a tendering process that raises more questions than answers.

In February this year, two strangers in a white 4WD appeared at the home of Rhianna and Cane Gorfine.

Cane Gorfine: We had a knock on the door by two men representing themselves from Castle Quarry Products, and virtually said, 'You're going to have a sand mine extracting upwards of 700,000 tonnes of sand a year for the next 20 years, 20 metres from your doorstep.'

Ann Arnold: The Gorfines would later learn that Castle Quarry Products was part of Buildev, a development company whose main backer was Nathan Tinkler. Buildev's co-founder and director was Darren Williams. Evidence before ICAC that Tinkler and Williams made disguised donations to several Liberal politicians resulted in the resignation of those politicians.

One of the visitors to the Gorfines and other neighbours was Murray Towndrow, then Buildev's development manager. They weren't sure who the other person was. The visits were part of the community consultation required for an Environmental Impact Statement for the sand mine.

Rhianna and Cane live with their three children and animals on undulating land near the Williamtown RAAF base and Newcastle Airport. This was the first they'd heard of a sand mine in the council-owned bushland next door to them.

They were worried about the health and environmental impacts. But they were even more disturbed when they looked into how Port Stephens Council awarded the mining lease to Nathan Tinkler's company.

Cane Gorfine: When we started investigating the tender process, we soon discovered that in actual fact the Castle Quarry Products were awarded the tender despite the council's own expert advice and recommendation.

Ann Arnold: Castle Quarry Products had initially been ruled out. A tender evaluation panel was concerned about the company's financial viability, and the absence of a bank guarantee. But the Mayor Bruce MacKenzie would lead the council in over-ruling the panel's advice.

Initially, he'd been in the race himself. The council put the mining lease out to tender in 2013. There were nine tenders. One of them was the Mayor's company, Macka's Sand.

Bruce MacKenzie: It's white sand. It's probably the most valuable sand, white silica sand. You can make clear glass out of it if you take the heavy minerals out of it.

Ann Arnold: Royalties from the project could bring in $20 million for the council. The mining company would make even more.

Bruce MacKenzie: I think it's been common knowledge that there's sand on the site, because sand has become more valuable in the last decade, and council's owned it more than that time. You haven't got to be bloody Einstein to work it out. You drive past and you see sand hills there.

Ann Arnold: But at the last minute, the Mayor withdrew his tender, just the day before the councillors were to vote on it.

Bruce MacKenzie: The council was going to make a decision. I wanted to be involved in the decision making.

Ann Arnold: The Mayor admits he knew his company was not the preferred tenderer.

Bruce MacKenzie: I knew the tenders.

Ann Arnold: You knew the recommendation?

Bruce MacKenzie: Of course, but we weren't the preferred tender, but I did not want Collins to get it either

Ann Arnold: A five-person tender evaluation panel, which included an external mining expert, had unanimously recommended Collins Sands, a Sydney-based company. It had the expertise and was financially sound. But Bruce MacKenzie preferred Castle Quarry Products, because, he said, it was offering to pay the council more in royalties.

Bruce MacKenzie: I saw what the other people, Castle Quarries were paying, and as far as I'm concerned, that was the deal for Port Stephens Council.

Ann Arnold: The Mayor then led the decision-making. It wasn't hard to get his preferred tenderer over the line. The majority of councillors form a voting bloc behind the Mayor. He partly funded their joint election campaign in 2012. The council voted to reject all tenderers, but invite them back to make a presentation, with an emphasis on royalties. The Mayor had been enthusing about Castle Quarry's royalty offer.

At the time, its parent company Buildev and other Tinkler companies were running into financial strife. Labor Councillor Geoff Dingle was not happy about the prospect of working with Castle Quarry.

Geoff Dingle: The concern I had was when I sat down after the council meeting with the council staff member, and he said to me Castle Sands was a non-conforming tender. It didn't conform. He said they were unable to provide a bank guarantee, for a start. And the other comment I always recall him making was that they had one and a half employees. He'd seen their worker's compensation, and they effectively didn't have a workforce. They had a salesman, and that was pretty much it. That concerned me.

Ann Arnold: At the end of that council meeting, you sat down with this staff member, and he said…he was shaking his head was he…?

Geoff Dingle: He was very upset.

Ann Arnold: …saying, 'This Castle Sands ...' He'd done all the due diligence and said Collins was the company…

Geoff Dingle: He was upset because he'd done a very thorough job of assessing these nine tenderers, and Castle Sands were considered to be non-conforming.

Ann Arnold: Just two companies made a presentation; Tinkler's Castle Quarry Products, and the recommended tenderer, Collins Sands.

Geoff Dingle was not impressed with Castle Quarry.

Was there a sense that they knew what they were doing with sand mining?

Geoff Dingle: It was a sense that they were going to get what they wanted. That's what the sense was. That Collins Sands were showing themselves to be quite professional in terms of their presentation and their approach, and Castle Sands were handing around a piece of paper with their alternative price on it.

Ann Arnold: Castle Quarry Products won the tender. They were a small sand miner with one other operation, at nearby Fullerton Cove. And they had been fined by the council for removing sand there without consent.

Mayor Bruce MacKenzie is confident he made the right choice.

You recommended one that didn't have a lot of sand mining experience, had hardly any employees, was a $2 shelf company, and was connected to Nathan Tinkler and Darren Williams and people who there had been some questions about their operations. Why that company?

Bruce MacKenzie: Let's face it, mining experience with sand, Blind Freddy could bloody mine sand. You take the topsoil off, you get a load and you load it on a truck or wash it. You haven't got to have great practice in sand mining. Plus the fact that...

Ann Arnold: There must be ways of…you must have to be environmentally conscious, you must have to be safety conscious for peoples' health in the area?

Bruce MacKenzie: Of course, but it's not a university degree to be a sand miner.

Ann Arnold: Mayor Bruce MacKenzie.

Darren Williams, Castle Quarry Products' director, has personal connections with some of the council powerbrokers. He was best man at the Mayor's son's wedding. At Darren Williams' own wedding, Councillor Ken Jordan was the best man. Cr Jordan did not vote on the sand mine lease. Cr Steve Tucker has previously declared a personal association with Darren Williams, but didn't feel it was a sufficient conflict of interest to prevent him voting.

Buildev, Castle Quarry's parent company, has built shopping centres and other developments in the council area, often with the council as the client.

But in 2013, liquidators were moving in on some of the Buildev companies.

Mayor Bruce MacKenzie says Darren Williams deserved a chance.

Bruce MacKenzie: He's entitled to make a living. He's entitled to rear a family and pay his mortgage off. It doesn't give two hoots to me if Darren Williams is involved in it. He's been involved with Tinkler. He might have got painted with the wrong brush, being involved with him, but that doesn't concern me.

Ann Arnold: For the Mayor, the royalty payments were ultimately the winning factor for Castle Quarry Products.

Were there any other tenderers offering to pay more?

Bruce MacKenzie: No. Castle Quarries was the highest by far.

Ann Arnold: Did you suggest to them that it's the money that the council's really wanting? If they can up their payments, then they've got a good chance?

Bruce MacKenzie: Who to?

Ann Arnold: Castle Quarry.

Bruce MacKenzie: No way in the wide world. I never spoke to Castle Quarries about it. The only thing I saw was the business paper that said they were about 250% more than anyone else, and as far as I'm concerned, answerable to no one, that's what I wanted for Port Stephens rate payers.

Ann Arnold: But in fact there was a money problem right from the start. The $250,000 bank guarantee that Castle Quarry was supposed to provide as a security deposit, didn't materialise for months. Then, it came in cash. That concerned Councillor Geoff Dingle.

Geoff Dingle: Within several months of that approval, the Mayor made an announcement, it was in one of our briefings, he stood up and said, 'Good news, good news, the bank guarantee has arrived as cash.' Now, my ears prick up when they say it's arrived as cash.

Ann Arnold: Geoff Dingle decided to find out where the cash came from.

Geoff Dingle: I did go to the financial manager and say to him, 'Can you establish for me the source of the money?' And he came back and he gave me bank details, he said it came from such-and-such a bank. And I said, well, 'What about...who deposited it, what was the name of the depositor?' And he said, 'I can't provide that detail.' So he either couldn't or wouldn't, I'm not sure. So it has always been a concern to me where the source of the $250,000 came from when it was a period when Tinkler was short of cash, I'd already been told by a staff member that they were unable to provide the cash. So there's always been this question hanging over it; where did it come from?

Ann Arnold: The Mayor wasn't overly concerned about the source of the money.

Is it usual for it to come in cash?

Bruce MacKenzie: Probably not, but it did.

Ann Arnold: You made the announcement about it at council. Why was that? How did you know that?

Bruce MacKenzie: I was told. I'm the Mayor, for goodness sake. I want to know if that happens, because there were so many…not so many, but there were detractors in the council saying it would never happen, and we wouldn't get the money, so I announced we got the money. C-A-S-H, cash.

Ann Arnold: Where did it come from?

Bruce MacKenzie: I wouldn't have a clue. I'm not concerned where it come from.

Ann Arnold: Shouldn't you be, though? Because this was a company that had trouble coming up with that security deposit, and then suddenly it arrives in cash.

Bruce MacKenzie: I couldn't give two hoots where it come from, as long as Council got it.

Ann Arnold: It didn't come from you? You didn't bail them out?

Bruce MacKenzie: [laughs] You're a comedian. I didn't bail them out. Don't try to tell me that's been said, has it?

Ann Arnold: People wonder. It seems mysterious to people why this money just suddenly appeared, and why it was you who was proudly announcing that it had arrived?

Bruce MacKenzie: It didn't come from Bruce MacKenzie, but how many times you've seen Tinkler go to the wall, and all of a sudden he puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out another $100,000, or $500,000? Come on. Whoever says that is a bloody ratbag.

Ann Arnold: So you'd say Tinkler's found a way somehow?

Bruce MacKenzie: Of course.

Ann Arnold: He's shifted things around?

Bruce MacKenzie: Yes, and that's his business, not mine, and not the people who spoke about this.

Ann Arnold: Since that deal was struck in 2013, the council has twice allowed the company to re-arrange itself and have the lease issued to a new entity, without going out to tender again.

Last year the council agreed in principle to transfer the sand mine lease to a company called Benelli Holdings. Councillor Geoff Dingle:

Geoff Dingle: It just came out of the blue. It was presented to council that there was a benefit to transfer CQP to a shelf company called Benalli. When we did a search on that, we determined the owners were, or the shareholders were Nathan Tinkler's father, and Darren Williams' wife.

Ann Arnold: But Benelli never became the new lessee. It couldn't meet the council's requirements.

Then, in July this year, Nathan Tinkler wrote to the council asking if the lease could be transferred to a newly created company; Williamtown Sand Syndicate. At around this time, the Supreme Court made an order for Tinkler’s arrest, after he'd failed to appear in a court case about his debts.

Mayor Bruce MacKenzie was happy to oblige Tinkler's request.

Bruce MacKenzie: Bloody oath. Because at the end of the day, we had two reputable people backing the company and putting in quite a considerable amount of money, I believe. And I'm quite happy, because it's justified my stand over the time that at the end of the day, Council's going to get a decent dollar for their product, and if I hadn't been involved from day one, Council wouldn't have done that.

Ann Arnold: And these two reputable people. What do you know about them?

Bruce MacKenzie: I think the accountant guy, I think he's from a family of very reputable businesspeople in Newcastle. I think the other guy has had a good name, and he's been in top real estate agencies, and I believe they've put in a considerable amount of money, and they've got good reputations. I've met them a few times, I've known them for years. Not personally, but known of them.

Ann Arnold: The accountant is Christopher Sneddon. His firm Maxim Accounting and Business Advisors in Newcastle, promises on its website that, quote, 'we're like the godfather when it comes to protecting your business' and 'we're like a jet pilot when it comes to pushing the limits'.

Chris Sneddon told Background Briefing that he is one of two directors of Williamtown Sand Syndicate. The other is Murray Towndrow, one of the duo who doorknocked neighbours of the sand mine in February. Darren Williams is an employee and not a shareholder. There are several other investors who he declined to name. Nathan Tinkler is in no way involved, Chris Sneddon said.

Councillor Geoff Dingle argued in council that the sand mine lease should have been put out to tender again. But Mayor Bruce MacKenzie said that wouldn't have been fair to the people involved.

Bruce MacKenzie: No, no, no, and no, because those people, those peoples' money, who I have no doubt that the new people in that company have had to pay someone out to buy into that property, because there's been money spent on studies. They haven't been sitting on their backside, they're done studies, so to me it wasn't fair. The price is still good, and the people behind it were good, so no, no, no, no, no. Just because people out in the street think that, but let them look after that, and let us look after peoples' money, which I've done for a long time.

Ann Arnold: Locals have wondered if Bruce MacKenzie, as a sand miner and trader in sand, might have had an interest in dealing with the new mine lessee.

Should you though have been involved in the decision-making when you are in the same line of business?

Bruce MacKenzie: Absolutely.

Ann Arnold: But couldn't you have benefited commercially?

Bruce MacKenzie: How can I benefit commercially on that sand mine? It's competition to me.

Ann Arnold: Or could it be cooperation? Were you going to work with that company in any way, and are you still?

Bruce MacKenzie: No. I'm not involved with that company. Never been, never will be. I know where you got this question from, and I could name that person. He's accused me of going to buy sand off them. If we want to buy sand off them down the track, it's got nothing to do with anyone but us.

Ann Arnold: So off this proposed mine? If you wanted to buy that sand?

Bruce MacKenzie: Yes. If we want to buy sand off the Pope, we'll buy sand off the Pope. I won't ask my detractors and the do-goers and the whingers and the whiners about where I want to buy sand, and how I want to carry out my life business, other than the council.

Ann Arnold: Two years after the lease was issued, no sand has been mined at Cabbage Tree Road. The Environmental Impact Statement is expected to go on public exhibition soon. It will then be up to the state government to allow the mine to go ahead or not.

The Mayor's intolerance of criticism or dissent is legendary. He does not like to be challenged. At the July community meeting about increasing the number of trucks on the road—trucks from the Mayor's company Macka's Sand—organisers say there was a hostile atmosphere.

Rob Rowsthorne says that after the Mayor swore at him outside the hall and, with his companions, blocked Rob's way, he went back and got the MP, Kate Washington.

Rob Rowsthorne: At that point I went straight back inside and grabbed Kate, literally grabbed Kate, and said 'Kate, I need you to listen to this, I'm being hassled by Bruce outside.' So Kate came out and stood there. There were a number of people that spoke to me after, that were standing behind me that can substantiate it. I had no hesitation at all in putting it into a stat dec.

Ann Arnold: What did Kate Washington do then?

Rob Rowsthorne: She asked them to move aside and let me leave. She then went back inside, she was still talking to people. I picked up the sound speaker again. They then blocked the way again, I went back and got Kate, this time she escorted me outside.

Ann Arnold: There are many stories circulating in the Port Stephens region about things the Mayor has said and done. This meeting was just one example.

Kate Washington had organised the meeting as the state member, because the road in question is a state road.

Kate Washington: I invited the Mayor to attend, which he did. He came with other people as well who I had had dealings with in the past. But it was certainly a case where the Mayor wanted everybody to know that he had seen them at that meeting.

And when people were leaving the community forum, the Mayor and the people that he came with formed a line outside of the hall so that people that were departing had to walk past them.

Ann Arnold: Who were these people that came with the Mayor? You said you've had dealings with them in the past.

Kate Washington: Yes, I have. In the past, and in the lead-up to the election, I was sent emails that I found to be aggressive. I was also found on pre-poll and on election day.

Ann Arnold: Found? Approached, do you mean? You were approached?

Kate Washington: [emotional]…sorry, Ann.

Ann Arnold: That's okay. So it was very tense?

Kate Washington: Yes.

Ann Arnold: These were men who came with Bruce MacKenzie, and you recognised some of them as men who had approached you on election day and polling day?

Kate Washington: Correct.

Ann Arnold: What had they said to you on those previous occasions?

Kate Washington: They shouted at me and were fairly unpleasant. That was the background to the people that were at the meeting.

Ann Arnold: There's no suggestion the Mayor Bruce MacKenzie knowingly encouraged or condoned the actions Kate Washington describes.

At the end of the meeting, she just wanted to leave.

Kate Washington: I ended up walking the resident out to ensure that he could leave comfortably.

Ann Arnold: Did you feel that you were safe in doing that?

Kate Washington: I don't like leaving community meetings with the sense that…I get in the car and I drive away and I have this absolute sense of relief that I've got out of there safely. And it's sad to say, but it's not been uncommon here.

Ann Arnold: Background Briefing's co-ordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Lawrence Bull, technical production by Marty Peralta, the executive producer is Wendy Carlisle, I'm Ann Arnold.

Follow us on Twitter, @RNBBing.