This is a story encompassing the Information & Privacy Commissioner (IPC), an undercover governmental cartel identified as NIPPN, and the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal (NCAT).

It involves false allegations, lack of action on the part of a regulatory body, and a judicial system completely uninterested in identifying what is fact and what is fiction.

It concerns an interested member of the public trying to exercise rights under the legislation to obtain NSW government records.

And now today, the outcome is a member of the public being provided access to documentation and commentary from the IPC, which continues to paint him in the false light he presents a serious risk to public safety; outraged the overturning caselaw has not been rightfully quoted as the correct current source of reference.

Telina Webb of NSW Freedom of Information had lodged an access application with Sydney Water requesting the provision of minutes of meetings and associated presentations for the group NIPPN.

Within the released information the IPC was recorded responding to a question from the Consultative Committee of NIPPN (NSW Right to Information & Privacy Practitioners Network), back in May 2022.  Public servants had petitioned the IPC, wanting to know how to protect themselves from the apparent rise in threats of violence from the public, somehow instigated by the release of mandatory Interest Disclosures.

Really?!  Threats of violence from the public on the rise?!  All over accessing government information?!

The Commissioner responded citing a number of caselaw decisions, including that of McEwan v Port Stephens in 2017, where fabricated claims of a risk of harm and the abuse of the Section 14 Table 3(f) clause of the GIPA Act 2009 were initially successful in NCAT, with the decision making reference to the Crimes, Domestic & Personal Violence Act 2007 and terms such as ‘molestation of a person’.

The caselaw of McEwan v Port Stephens Council (2017) NSWCATAD 269 was subsequently overturned on appeal in the  NCAT in 2018 and replaced in 2019 with a whole new decision, dispelling the 3(f) original claim.

The case of 2017 was founded on a false claim of a risk of harm by Port Stephens Council’s Governance Manager Tony Leslie Wickham and in-house solicitor Lisa Helene Marshall who both relied on the GIPA Act 2009 Section 14 Table 3(f), claiming Mr McEwan posed a serious risk to public safety.

The use of the 3(f) clause was recommended by Mr Wickham in March 2012 to a member of the public who approached him personally and asked how to protect information that is ordinarily made publicly available.

The information was the Objecting Submissions to the Council DA No:  483 of 2011.

Mr Wickham was directly approached by a member of the public who wanted to lodge an objecting submission, but wanted to do so covertly which is outside of the legislation.

Instead of rightfully informing the person objecting submissions were open access and would be provided upon request, as per the legislation, Council documents, and Council’s published media, Mr Wickham chose to make a deal, an unlawful agreement with the person for that person’s sole benefit.

Mr Wickham suggested the 3(f) clause could be relied upon to conceal the document, then gave his personal reassurance “nothing’s to get past me” and that if the Commissioner comes calling in response to any complaint or review, that Council would respond.

Later Council did respond with a false and misleading letter to an Investigating Officer of the IPC, stating apprehended violence orders had been issued, that the police were called to neighbourhood disturbances involving Mr McEwan and his wife, and that Mr McEwan and his wife posed a serious risk to public safety.

But it was all a carefully crafted rouse!

Created by an individual who acted with deceit, and in collaboration with a member of the public who has since been confirmed to occupy a number of positions on Council Committees at that time, the two conspired to undermine the access to information legislation and deny Mr McEwan his legal rights by falsely relying on the 3(f) clause and with false allegations thrown in for good measure.

Mr Wickham was able to do these things because he controls the flow of information within Port Stephens Council through his collective roles including Executive Officer, Governance Manager, Privacy Officer, Right to Information Officer, Complaints Handling Officer, Code of Conduct Coordinator, and Joint Custodian of Secondary Employment.

Any reasonable person would agree the convergence of those roles places an individual in a permanent position of conflict of interest.

Mr Wickham is also fully informed documentation between agencies such as Council and the IPC are generally categorised as Exempt from the Access to Information legislation; meaning they are covered up and prevented from release.  All secrets are buried.  So he was confident Mr McEwan would never find out the truth of his corrupt conduct.

Thankfully a Council solicitor Carlo Zoppo had an apparent crisis of conscience and provided Mr Wickham’s false and misleading letter to the IPC, to Ms Webb.

So as history now tells us, if anybody questions any Port Stephens Council action or asks for any Port Stephens Council record, it’s Mr Wickham front and centre.  Truly nothing does or will get past him.

The IPC is fully aware of the circumstances of this horrific example of abuse of power and position, manipulation of the access to information legislation, and unlawful conduct by a Local Council senior executive in the exercise of statutory functions.  Despite her published powers to act she has done absolutely nothing, and if there ever was a case that warranted action it must be this one.

But much worse if that were possible, Mr Wickham provided his false allegations to a number of secondary government agencies and the NSW judiciary on a confidential basis so they could not be challenged resulting in the caselaw of McEwan v Port Stephens Council (2017) NSWCATAD 269.  Tony Wickham and in-house solicitor Lisa Marshall had lied to NCAT, falsified information in order to maintain the unlawful agreement to use that Clause 3(f) and honour the commitment to the party to the agreement “nothing’s to get past me”, “mate I’ve got your back, and as I told you, if anyone comes calling including the IPC, I’ll take care of everything for you.”
It would take Mr McEwan (4) four long years in NCAT with unquantifiable distress and trauma caused to him, to finally see the correct words in replacement caselaw “…..there is not a scintilla of evidence the Applicant posed the risk claimed by the Respondent…….” McEwan v Port Stephens Council (2021) NSWCATAD 110, (p160).

This time, armed with Mr Wickham’s false letter, Mr McEwan was ready to defend the repeated claims he posed a risk of harm.  Mr McEwan had requested access on this occasion to mandatory Interest Disclosures, the very documents the subject of the Commissioner’s recommendations.

Yes, it was the same Applicant and the same agency, Port Stephens Council.  Fancy that.

So it was today when Sydney Water released the documents initially heavily redacted through protest from the IPC, that Mr McEwan would see the original bad caselaw still being relied upon and in fact recommended by the IPC as a reliable source for application of the 3(f) clause well after it had been superseded.

As stated, the IPC is fully informed the claims were at all times false, misleading and calculated to deliberately pervert the course of natural justice.

It was shocking however to see it was the IPC recommending it be used when she knows far better and is totally informed of its obsolescence in relation to Mr McEwan.

The documents containing the revelation were requested from Sydney Water because its Privacy Officer Richard Sparshott is confirmed to be the current Chair of the NSW Right to Information & Privacy Practitioners Network, NIPPN.

NIPPN is documented to be very closely affiliated with the IPC, has direct access to both Commissioners on a regular basis, and indeed the Commissioners give talks at each and every quarterly get-together which has enjoyed the Commissioners’ financial benevolence for decades; swanky soirees at the Juliette Theatrette and Jubilee Room of Parliament House Sydney function centres, and recently allocated and catered for offices in the IPC building itself.

How lovely, some might say biased and a total conflict of interest.

NIPPN Practitioners; most are not formally qualified in anything other than publicly-funded courses to further careers; but clearly there is a hankering for a swanky title so practitioners it is.  From the public’s perspective they are clerks plain and simple, paper-pushers, with no sign of any qualification remotely resembling a practitioner of any kind.

Mr Sparshott took over as Chair of NIPPN from iCARE’s Principal Privacy Officer – Risk and Governance Nicole Gibbs-Steele some time in 2022 after she was caught interfering in the Access to Information Process, and was later confirmed to have participated in the breaching of the public’s personal privacy actioned in the context of NIPPN.

Hence Gibbs-Steele effectively handed the baton of leadership to Mr Sparshott following on from that embarrassment.

In addition to hearing regularly from the Commissioners, NIPPN also enjoys propaganda from the NSW Ombudsman, the NSW Crown Solicitors Office, NCAT, and Dept of Communities & Justice.  An academic located in Victoria has also been listed as a guest speaker.  The public should ask if the Commissioner also covered the costs for this interstate traveller.

Thus far the information available about these NIPPN members and guest speakers indicates a cartel operation agenda-driven to undermine the Access to Information and Privacy processes, with the ongoing inadequacy of searches for information and ministerial petitioning purposed for making the public’s legislated endeavours to seek out government records and personal information as difficult as possible.

Which leads the reader to this NIPPN Meeting of 22nd May 2022, and where the Information Commissioner was asked how to better protect and insulate Local Council staff and Councillors from mandatory provision of Interest Disclosures.

According to NIPPN, the QUOTE threats of violence UNQUOTE against this first tier of government are on the increase but there was no evidence to support this claim, and no information or report available on any media.

So instead of seeking that evidence in order to provide a solid response, the Information Commissioner referred the whole of the state’s right to information and privacy officers to the case of, among others, McEwan v Port Stephens Council (2017) NSWCATAD 269, where the GIPA Act 2009 Section 14 Table 3(f) was applied.

Ironically the access applicant on this occasion Telina Webb, is Paul McEwan's wife.
 No doubt this personal connection, which is well-known to both NIPPN and the Commissioners, formed the basis for initially objecting to the release of information, providing it heavily redacted at first instance; the Commissioner was understandably apprehensive about Mr McEwan realising what she was suggesting when it was well known to be obsolete and proven to be completely untrue.

Ms Webb also has an established history with NIPPN.  She initially requested Minutes of Meetings and the membership list in 2022 as a matter of public interest.  After all, the public does have the right to know where its public servants play and with whom.

During that initial interaction with NIPPN through iCARE’s Principal Privacy Officer Risk & Governance Ms Nicole Gibbs-Steele who happened to occupy the position Chair of NIPPN, Ms Webb would realise just how tightly knit members are and how willing they are to brush departmental statutory obligations off the table as individual situations and circumstances suit, resulting in the regular breach of the public’s privacy without hesitation.

The information breach concerned the personal details of Telina Webb of NSW Freedom of Information.

And Ms Gibbs-Steele had jointly with iCARE’s Right to Information Officer Lilly Tzinberg, disclosed Ms Webb’s personal information with several other members of NIPPN despite Ms Webb’s clear instruction she did not give her consent to do so; they breached the privacy legislation.

Not a very good example for the remainder of the state’s practitioners, particularly from the Chair, and one with such a long-winded title such as Principal Privacy Officer Risk & Governance.

Hold on; doesn't governance relate to corporate responsibility and policing?!

Now, the documents requested of Sydney Water concern more NIPPN meeting records as the group continues to operate covertly and out of the general public’s sight for the most part.  But not out of the Information & Privacy Commissioners’ sight where NIPPN has ready access that is not made available to the general public.

Of particular interest within these documents provided to Ms Webb today, was the content of Gibbs-Steele’s email to her fellow NIPPN members dated 24th May 2022.

The email concerned Minutes and attachments relating to the meeting of 22nd May, and Gibbs-Steele was circulating them in her capacity as Chair, apparently keeping a tight grip on the recipient list and sending to each member under Blind Copy, for what purpose is yet to be made clear.

 In fact, so blind was the copy, Sydney Water has asserted it received Gibbs-Steele’s email singularly; meaning she delivered approximately (500) five hundred emails to the membership list individually.  There is no credible way of calculating just how much of iCARE’s time and resources was taken up by this task, all within office hours.  And all this for a forum claimed to be ad-hoc and non-governmental in nature, at least according to Ms Gibbs-Steele’s Sworn Affidavit of August 2022.

The common thread here is both the Commissioner and NIPPN exclude the general public.

The public is also excluded from any publicly-funded training in the area of access to information and privacy.

Training is provided by the Office of the NSW Crown Solicitor, one Megan Carter of private enterprise Information Consultants, one Phillip Youngman of private enterprise Youngman Consultancy, and Salinger Privacy.

Principal Solicitor for the Crown Solicitor’s Office Ms Kiri Sue Mattes stated under oath in 2022, she / the Crown, uses NIPPN as a marketing gateway to legal services.  The same could be true for Carter, Youngman, and Salinger; making presentations for free at NIPPN quarterly meetings, promoting their wares in the process and bypassing procurement processes to gain direct access to departmental decision makers.

No wonder they don’t want the public to know what’s going on behind NIPPN doors................

“It’s examples such as this which makes accessing government information so important to the general public; it has the right to know what its government employees are doing, how they’re doing it, who’s paying for it, and what the implications and / or conflicts of interest are.

NIPPN has been operating freely for over (2) two decades with some of its members from private enterprise.  These meetings are now confirmed to regularly breach the public’s privacy, by these so-called practitioners, relying on the prep-school Chatham House Rules with these individuals managing to convince themselves the Rule somehow overides statutory obligations.

NIPPN members operate on the premise that ‘whatever happens at NIPPN stays at NIPPN’.  These individuals are public servants.  They attend NIPPN during paid work hours, with the IPC funding their venues.  The overall attitude of superiority and arrogance is staggering.  They actually believe it’s all okay,” stated Ms Webb.

“The public needs to ask for more information.  The propaganda about open transparent accountable government is a myth.  There’s no such thing.  The public’s reality is our public servants do everything they can to obstruct those principles and expectations.  And here we have yet another example with the Commissioner herself actually suggesting the use of caselaw which was all based on perverting the course of justice and perjury, and which was rightfully overturned.  It’s absolutely disgraceful and shameful!  Speaking for my husband he finds it very disturbing to see more and more of the ‘them v us’ reckless attitude of complete indifference exhibited by government employees who obviously do not remotely consider those they actually work for.”

“As long as this kind of evidenced unconscionable conduct continues to run unchecked and government employees remain unaccountable, the public should expect to see more of the same from those entrusted with delegated authority to exercise statutory functions; with the expectation the public will be financially and reputationally damaged for daring to exercise their legal rights, and where those offending perpetrators are rewarded with promotions and financial enrichment for jobs all too well done.  And I note to this very date not one single tribunal member has ever asked my wife or I a single question about the 3(f) claim of a risk of harm, not one,” commented Mr McEwan.  “Yes, the unlawful agreement is still in place.  Yes, the Commissioner is fully informed.  No, nothing’s been done about it.  In my view the close relationship between the IPC and NIPPN, of which Mr Wickham is a member, places the Commissioner in the unenviable position of having to discipline her friends and colleagues.  Obviously this is not something she has any interest in.  She is not independent, she is not impartial, she is compromised, and as such I can only see her and her office as complete failures at great cost to the public purse.”
But with the IPC recommending obsolete caselaw and in doing so misinforming her subordinate agencies, it would be difficult to see the IPC in a position to take legislated disciplinary action against those occasioning unconscionable conduct on behalf of the public being served.

ContactTony Wickham, Tony.wickham@portstephens.nsw.gov.au

Lisa Marshall, lisa.marshall@portstephens.nsw.gov.au

Robert Sparshott, privacy@sydneywater.com.au

Nicole Gibbs-Steele, privacy-access-network@icare.nsw.gov.au

Lilly Tzinberg, gipa@icare.nsw.gov.au

Information & Privacy Commissioner, ipcinfo@ipc.nsw.gov.au

Paul McEwan, draftcom.pmc@gmail.com