“I’ve got no problems of councillors asking me to demonstrate my actions, however, to follow on from a ‘Question Without Notice’ posed by Joe (Thompson) in June when I was not even at the council meeting and then for Peter (Ainsworth) to bring forward his notice of motion, simply asking for me to provide information and media evidence, was completely wrong,

“On the night I showed every media release I have made comments in, and even after Joe tried to bring proceedings to a halt before I was finished, was evidence enough that anything I said or did wasn’t going to change their minds.

“They had already made their decision before the meeting and no matter what I would have done, the motion was going to go through.

“It was very well orchestrated.

“I just hope at the end of the day it doesn’t come back and bite the community on the bum, if we lose the bi-partisan support we had achieved.”

Cr Wall said he will now sit down with general manager Craig Deasey and have a “long, hard talk”.

“There are issues that have to be put to bed before I finish up in September,” he said.

“The new mayor will have to be brought up to speed”.

“There are things they won’t know which are critical in the day-to-day running of council and major matters that need to be addressed that have nothing to do with the dam issue.

“I will put together a handover- briefing paper as we can’t afford to have a great lapse.

“Whoever takes the job on will need a rapid fire learning curve, particularly if it is one of the councillors who have only served for two years”.

“They will be coming into office after the federal election and before the state election.

“It is also crucial that the new mayor continues the collaborative approach with other government agencies such as Country Energy, emergency services, NSW Police, Hunter Water, Local Government organisations and the list goes on.

“The mayor needs to sit at the table and drive agendas with all these organisations on behalf of all our communities.”