AT Tuesday night’s Warrnambool City Council meeting, elected representatives Brian Kelson and Peter Hulin launched an extraordinary and unjustified attack on this newspaper.

Regrettably, Cr Kelson accused journalist Peter Collins, a 42-year veteran of The Standard, of not letting the ‘‘truth get in the way of a good story’’ or words to that effect. In other words, that he was a liar.

Fellow councillor Peter Hulin inferred that we engage in ‘‘gutter’’ journalism and suggested that no one at the  newspaper had any integrity.

Earlier this week, Cr Kelson was given free rein on local radio to make similar unbalanced claims. Naturally, we refute Cr Kelson’s unfounded and grossly unfair accusations against Mr Collins.

As for  Cr Hulin he has, not for the first time, threatened to sue us for defamation of character. We have yet to receive any form of legal correspondence from Cr Hulin or his lawyers, but remain confident that in a court of law our reporting will be deemed fair, accurate and not in the least bit defamatory of any city councillor.

Cr Hulin told Tuesday’s meeting that he found it ‘‘refreshing’’ to talk to journalists from other publications because they did not twist his words.

The reason for this bad-tempered onslaught on the public record lies in our coverage of a Local Government Inspectorate inquiry into the leaking of sensitive information to The Age newspaper from a confidential council briefing, dated February 10, 2014.

The material was used to kick-start  articles in The Age last year that suggested inappropriate links between then premier Denis Napthine and Midfield Meat boss Colin McKenna.

The Age questioned why Dr Napthine shared an interest in a horse called Spin The Bottle with Mr McKenna and why Midfield had been given a $1.5 million grant from the state government to help with its expansion plans. It also questioned the proposed sale of Crown land to Midfield and transfer of title ownership for its proposed milk plant.

While The Age failed to present convincing evidence to show that either Mr McKenna or Dr Napthine had engaged in anything untoward, the newspaper’s articles severely wounded Dr Napthine during last year’s election campaign.

Last Saturday, under the headline ‘Secret Meeting’, The Standard presented the findings of the inspectorate’s inquiry into the leak, which all city councillors co-operated fully with.

The article accurately stated that while the inspectorate could not prove who was behind the leak after reviewing the phone records of all councillors, Crs Kelson, Hulin and Sycopoulis had met The Age journalist Ben Schneiders on April 30, 2014, the day before the first of the newspaper’s articles. Our report  quoted the inspectorate’s finding that they discussed ‘‘matters relating to council business’’. Only those three councillors were singled out in the inspectorate’s report.

Our story also clearly pointed out that the three councillors in question had strongly denied being behind any leak and had signed affidavits to that effect. 

In the same edition an Editorial Comment said that Dr Napthine had a right to feel a sense of betrayal over the leak from within the city council. It also suggested that he might be interested to know what the nature of the ‘‘council business’’ discussed between the three councillors and  Mr Schneiders might have been.

We stand by that comment, especially as the detail of that discussion remains unclear.

On Tuesday, we published a follow-up article in which council chief executive Bruce Anson defended releasing the inspectorate’s findings in the latest council agenda.

This article also pointed out that the inspectorate had omitted to say in its findings that Mr Schneiders was already in possession of the ‘‘pertinent documents’’ before meeting with the three councillors. 

A second Editorial Comment went on to criticise the inspectorate’s recommendation that tighter controls be placed on councillors when they talk to media . It also suggested that the wisest course of action would be for all councillors to abide by their code of conduct by not doing or saying anything that might bring the council into disrepute.

We stand by that report and editorial comment.

A third front-page story published in yesterday’s newspaper outlined Cr Hulin’s account at Tuesday night’s council meeting of why Mr Schneiders asked to meet with him.

Cr Hulin told the meeting that Mr Schneiders was in Warrnambool for the May races and had contacted him because he wanted the ‘‘truth’’ about the council.  Crs Hulin, Kelson and Sycopoulis have not revealed details of the discussion.

We say that Saturday’s ‘Secret Meeting’ headline was justified for this reason: the three councillors met  Mr Schneiders (at a barbecue at Cr Hulin’s house) but did not tell anyone on council about that meeting, not fellow councillors or mayor Michael Neoh, not Mr Anson and not the communications manager Nick Higgins.

And we repeat, for reasons only known to themselves, they  have not as yet revealed what ‘‘council business’’ was discussed with Mr Schneiders.

Furthermore, it has not been made entirely clear why Mr Schneiders,  in possession of explosive confidential information from within the city council, wished to meet Cr Hulin.

The public is obliged to give these three councillors the benefit of the doubt, but quite clearly questions about their role in this affair remain unanswered.

Contrary to popular belief among supporters of Crs Hulin, Kelson and Sycopoulis, The Standard does not engage in biased reporting of the city council. We have no reason to.

 Our duty is to our readers and we remain committed to  reporting without fear or favour matters of public interest to the citizens of Warrnambool. That’s our job and we continue to do it well.

Shooting the messenger is not new of course. It remains a popular — albeit tiresome — pastime for many public servants across all levels of government.

 In the meantime, if anyone has any lingering doubts about how we covered this issue they can  read the inspectorate’s report on page 509 of the latest council agenda and judge for themselves.