Strathfield Independents Fact Check

The vote counting continues at a snails pace and the results may appear obvious but the distribution of preferences under the weighted inclusive Gregory Method -WIGM - can produce unexpected results. The following links explains how it works – good luck with understanding that.
https://elections.nsw.gov.au/getmedia/32c0dab6-1b60-4e77-99f6-ebbcb735950c/distribution-of-preferences-detailed-report.pdf.
There may be 2 independents elected. The major parties may get 3 seats each or a 3/2 split probably Lib/Labor.
An Independents support may be needed to get the seat in the Big Chair.
Can an Independent be trusted?
After the last election, (3 Labor, 4 independents elected), the Independents agreed, the night before the first meeting, that they would vote together to keep local politics local. A document was signed by all and witnessed by council staff. Plenty of copies around.
During the campaign Labor policy was “no Real Estate Agents on local councils”. Plenty of adverse comments re Mathew Blackmore from Labor that cost Elizabeth Farrelly her job and reputation. SMH Dec 4th 2021. Fin Review 26th Jan 2022

After Blackmore signed the document – (a real man’s word is his bond so doesn’t even need a signed document! ) – within hours, principles were forgotten a deal was done for Blackmore to have a turn in the Big Chair if he supported Labor.

Would either party trust Matthew Blackmore if a similar situation occurs this time??

After preferences distributed who knows???

www.elections.n

Matthew Blackmore and Strathfield Independents couldn't help themselves - they have invented another scare campaign. Not on the scale of the "Lend Lease will take over the square" of the last election but a blatant lie anyway.
According to Blackmore, COUNCIL INTENDS TO STOP THE WEEKLY RED BIN COLLECTION - Absolutely not true.

I thought they may have come up with a world beating master plan to stop global warning if elected - this is just pathetic petty scaremongering.

If he had attended more than 4 of the council meeting in the last year he would have known that this was never discussed.
Cr's Ben Cai, Nella Hall, Raj Datta, Sharangan Maheswaran and Sandy Reddy have worked together to make the achievements of this council possible for the residents.

Cr Blackmore's major achievement was to bring the council into disrepute when the Probity Report into the Blackmore instigated Town Square Working Group, stacked with his cronies, found potential for corruption and were sacked.

Blackmore was silent when the Council investigated the Water St development which would have cost the council millions. He was the only supporter there and could have clarified the process but he may have incriminated himself - revealing his backers/beneficiaries, or maybe just his poor ability to assess a proposal and lack of decision making skills.

Selective absence at meetings when questions may have been asked.

The minutes of the 23rd July meeting have been published. What is unsaid or unexplained is more interesting than the actual minutes and residents deserve to know just what is occurring as we approach the election.
Item 5.5 suggests there have been threats made and harassment made to Cr Maheswaran and other councillors. Not a big pool of suspects left???

CR Blackmore, 10.3, proposed a strange motion that would have used considerable Council resources.
The motion was amended by Cr Maheswaran, supported by all other councillors, to cover specific properties
1. A proposal involving multiple sites in Homebush first put to council in 2018 by a company called HOMELINX PTY Ltd. Joining the dots of names involved and ICAC report into Canterbury Council might give some clues as to why questions are being asked.
2. Strathfield Square properties that Cr Blackmore and the fake Chamber of Commerce were promoting before the Probity Report stopped them.
3. The Water St proposal that was initially supported by Cr Blackmore, would have given a Xmas present to some developers and cost the council $7M with significant loss of open space.

When these specific matters were added to the motion, Cr Blackmore remembered some conflicts of interest and left the room.

Not too hard for Cr Blackmore to provide more details and Residents deserve these if he intends to stand for relection in September.
He did say in March that he would not be running but Flipper has been known to change his mind.

I have added some documents from 2021 demonstrating the dishonesty of Strathfield Independents at the time. They may do even better at these upcoming elections.
SI Flyer with lies re dates of establishment, Labor Flyer rebutting lies re Lend Lease proposal and a fake letter some residents residents received.. There is no record of an Audrey Hamilton residing or owning property in Strathfield.

Most of the members of Strathfield Independents reside outside the municipality - source - NSW Electoral Commission records.
Neither Matthew Blackmore nor the executive members of SI live in Strathfield LGA. - Croydon and Concord respectively. Source - NSW Electoral Commission , ASIC.

Strathfield Independents did not exist in 2017 when Bressington Park was saved and Matthew Blackmore played no part - no addresses to council or even attendance at any council meetings and no written submissions. I know as I attended every one, spoke at many and made written submissions, as did all of the Save Our Strathfield Independents group. Obvious why the name was worth stealing.
The Bressington issue was resolved by the previous council before Blackmore was elected to council in 2017. He achieved only 0.66 of the quota required using the group name "Mayors Independent Team" and a page "Vote Strathfield" or similar.

Strathfield Independents -SI- Lies prior to 2021 Election.

The Labor party had the resources to produce a flyer highlighting some of the lies told in the SI election material in 2021.
Claim – SI are the only people opposing the Lend Lease proposal.
As mentioned on this page previously, SI members did not want this proposal as it conflicted with their own plans. These were exposed by the Probity Report and the Town Square development committee, including members of SI was sacked.
Labor – “never been any intention for this proposal to proceed to the SLPP, and Council was not the relevant consent authority.”
A completely false scare campaign which could have ultimately benefited SI members and Esperia Court Pty Ltd. This was common knowledge to anybody paying attention but obviously alarmed residents who weren’t.

Their flyer also highlighted voting patterns where Cr Blackmore voted to rezone community land at 1 Loftus Crescent, and Hudson Park West, gifting a rezoning to developers as already detailed on this page. These proposals were eventually defeated at significant cost to council - $70000 was quoted for the Loftus Crescent proposal alone.

IN 2019 SI objected to my registration of the Strathfield Independents trade mark “for political purposes”.
Their submissions went to hundreds of pages of verbiage. I felt sorry for the assessors.
In a 19 page decision - this was longer than all my submissions - she found that the Strathfield Independents “failed to establish any of the grounds of opposition” on all 8 objections.

A couple of points.
From their electoral material, SI claimed to have been established in 2014. An email was sent to the electoral commission by Blackmore in 2014 but no further action was taken. The next record the assessor found of Blackmore using the Strathfield Independents name was a flyer allegedly delivered to an unknown number of household after June 2019.

Consequently, SI could not have had any role in the fight against amalgamation, the potential loss of Bressington Park and Elliott Reserve – all finalised in 2017. The work on these was done by Save Our Strathfield which morphed into Save our Strathfield Independents and the original Strathfield Independents.
Blackmores registration of the name as a local party was an obvious attempt to claim the credit for work done by others.
The assessor found the Strathfield Independents name was already a registered business name, domain name and page in early 2019 before Blackmore started using the name.

To summarise, much of the electoral material distributed by Strathfield Independents in the 2021 election contained blatant lies, designed to grossly exaggerate the achievements of Strathfield Independents at the expense of those who actually did the work.
Residents do not pay much attention to local elections and are easily swayed by lies told by dishonest candidates late in the campaign.
Their trust that councillors are honest residents prepared to serve their community is sometimes misplaced.

The minutes for the last Council meeting still haven't been posted. I don't think much happened anyway.
This page was started to highlight the "alternative facts" put out by Matthew Blackmore, the party and the fake chamber of commerce ( now defunct??).
This group may contest the next election so a report card will be put together starting from when they hijacked the Strathfield Independents name from the group which successfully saved Strathfield from amalgamation.
IP Australia who regulate intellectual property, trade marks etc found that the Strathfield Independents party have no right to use the name "Strathfield Independents" for political purposes. Their objections to our Trade Mark registration was 300+ pages of submissions covering 8 claims all comprehensively rejected - a 2 year process.
Our submission was 12 pages and the Trade Mark "Strathfield Independents +logo" is registered to us.
The Strathfield Independents domain name, business name were all in use and legally registered before Blackmore & Co decided they needed the name and it's reputation with residents to be re-elected.
The group name he was elected on (did not achieve a quota) could not be used again as putting Blackmore in a group name might invite an internet search which would bring up the unfortunate incident that resulted in Blackmore being banned from the Real Estate industry for 10 years.

Boring stuff but this dishonest conduct started a long time ago with claims to have been educated the Australian Catholic University, experience in Government Administration, Board Member of the Strathfield Chamber of Commerce etc and has continued to the failed attempt to hijack the Strathfield Square for their vested interests.
Plenty of gaps to fill in before the elections.

Cr Blackmore overcame his anxiety and attended a council meeting after declaring he would not be attending any more in this term. Not surprising that Flipper changed his mind again.
Council and Councillors appear to have gone into election mode - nothing controversial.
It might be time to start preparing an end of term Report Card for Strathfield Independents to be distributed prior to the election.
Plenty of material starting with the BIG LIE promoted in the lead up to the 2021 election that they were the only party/ group opposed to the high rise Lend Lease proposal for Strathfield Square.
It became clear with the Probity Report that the only proposal they were interested in was the one proposed by their supporter (singular!) - serious conflicts of interest concealed by Cr Blackmore and the Fake Chamber of Commerce.

The Ghost councillor turned up on Tuesday to avoid having to explain himself and keep his place at the trough. Taking time from his real estate career in the interests of the community or maybe real estate is a bit quiet??
Little was achieved. Much discussion about verification of all conflict of interest declarations made over the last couple of years.
It's not that hard.
A forensic approach would be to identify the "crime" then find the evidence - not look at all the evidence then look for a "crime"
What has caused the council embarrassment recently?
The Town Square Working Group debacle.
Were any dubious Conflict of Interest statements made at workshops or meetings which led to the wrong people being appointed?
I believe there were, have put some details here and they are not hard to verify.
The Probity Report was a cover up for the actions of council and councillors in the establishment of this working Group.
Compare the qualifications required for the new committee members and those of the old committee.
Perhaps a cadet reporter from the Tele could come up with a story that would reflect badly on Council with a few hours work.

These things best tidied up in-house and that is not happening.
Guidance from the OLG will not be forthcoming. I gave them examples of false statements 2 years ago. The response, a phone call, nothing in writing of course, was that a it is up to the GM to monitor.

COUNCILLOR LEGACY.
Many councillors like to be remembered for their good deeds.

At the last meeting Councillors were presented with a “script” to clarify their Conflict of Interest Declarations. No doubt this will evolve into a formal document and be available on the website.

This should bring an end to vague statements such as:-
Councillor Workshop 18 July 2023 –
“ Cr Blackmore is an acquaintance of 2 members of the committee”

He has been closely involved with these people for years.
This committee was stacked to benefit a few but is now the sacked Strathfield Town Centre Masterplan Working Group.
There certainly was a MasterPlan but not one to benefit us.

Both members were also members of the Strathfield Independents party. Susan Macdonald an office holder with the party and self proclaimed Secretary of the Strathfield Chamber of Commerce for more than 10 years.
Cr Blackmore claimed to be ex President and member of Board of Governors going back 10 years.
Cr Blackmore asked Council to congratulate Andrew Soulos on being elected President of this fake Chamber on 6th October 2020.
The Soulos family development company is Esperia Court Pty Ltd. Their DA for the Town Square properties expired on 16th Nov 2022.

Interference in the Town Square goes back years with the same people involved.
From the June 2015 minutes :-
On 5th June 2012 Strathfield Council passed the following motion.
“ Strathfield Chamber of Commerce Adversarial Apology
That Council contact the Strathfield Chamber of Commerce requesting that they cease their strategy of adversarial politics in relation to the Town Centre and formally apologise to local business and residents for their misleading information campaign. Further stating in the communication that Council and Councillors will not tolerate this behaviour and that political point scoring should never ever occur at the expense of our community”
No apology was given”

There are many examples of Cr Blackmore misrepresenting conflicts of interest regarding the Town Square. Council meetng 4th Feb 2020 and 3rd March 2020 are examples.

Fortunately Council staff finally saw the “big picture”, commissioned the Probity Report and the potential for interference for the benefit of a few has been removed.
It was a long term plan with potentially a big payday for some.

The new Councillors Form could be called a “Blackmore” as a reminder to all of the OLG advice – If in doubt, GET OUT.