A lawyer for Shoalhaven Mayoral candidate, Patricia White, has threatened outgoing Mayor Amanda Findley with defamation action after Findley publicly opined about White’s performance on council and questioned the background of her repeated claims of financial expertise and experience.
Mayor Amanda Findley is currently seeking her own legal advice.
Patricia White's litigious reaction highlights increasing pressure on public figures and media platforms NOT to express political opinions or criticise campaign rhetoric as voters go to the polls this Saturday more confused than ever.
With campaign keyboard warriors these days freely slinging mud or declaring endorsements, it’s disturbing to see concerted effort put into silencing those in possession of facts and willing to call out misinformation.
Thanks go to The Ferret’s Notebook for this special contribution to Spark to put these details on an accessible record. A long-time watcher of Shoalhaven politics, Ferret dug into this week’s stunning revelations, accusations and fallout to consider Mayoral merit in The Financial Accumen of Patricia White.
It’s a long read for those interested in the details, but let's jump to the last chapter's pages, turned just days before Shoalhaven’s voters elect a new Mayor.
After a $748,827 judgement was awarded to Mr and Mrs White following the failure of their Ulladulla business ventures, Canberra accountant, Mr Michael Gallagher, won an appeal in 2014 with the District Court striking the claim against him and ordering Patricia and Gary White to pay Mr Gallagher's legal costs.
However, Mr Gallagher revealed in an ABC interview on September 11 that he had not received from the Whites any of $250,000 in legal costs reportedly due to him.
Also interviewed by ABC Illawarra on September 11, Patricia White denied losing the case and being ordered to pay Mr Gallagher, despite that the published District Court decision in November 2014 and the Federal Bankruptcy Court hearing in 2015 confirm the appeal result, the details of the judgement and that costs were awarded.
“No. We didn’t have to pay any fees at all and we won in the District Court. We were not… we did not repay anything.”
The Spark spoke to Mr Gallagher who said although he had "given up on chasing those legal costs", he was glad to have won on appeal because he didn't do the White's bookkeeping, "But I still got sued".
"A lot of people just believe what they are told," Mr Gallagher said.
"Where I come from, the business person writes the cheques, not the bookkeeper."
So, what does this say about Patricia White's campaign platform of financial acumen? According to our Ferret:
"Given the substantial, incomplete, yet concerning evidence on the public record, ‘financial acumen’ seems an entirely reasonable question for discussion for someone who is presenting themselves for election as leader of a $500 million per year enterprise."
The Spark did seek responses from Patricia White, but has received no reply.
The Financial Acumen of Patricia White
It sounds like a particularly dreary Hollywood movie script pitch – Coen brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” written for film buffs who also appreciate a well-constructed Microsoft Excel formula.
Patricia White is one of three mayoral candidates in the 2024 Shoalhaven local government elections. She represents the Shoalhaven Independents, the registered political party long associated with Greg Watson and his supporters.
That group has sought to position Ms White as having the “financial acumen” desirable to lead a Council of 110,000 residents with an annual budget of close to $0.5 billion.
Outgoing Greens mayor, Amanda Findley, questioned the accuracy of such a claim in a post to the 2024 Shoalhaven Council Elections Discussion Facebook page on 10 September 2024, 4 days before the election.
Ms Findley said, in part,
“…White can turn up to set a pre poll at Ulladulla but can’t answer the hard questions about her financial acumen…”
The post was taken down by the end of the day after a letter was received from Ms White’s lawyers threatening defamation proceedings.
The full post received much attention over its short life. Many appreciated the information about prior dealings of Ms White. Some supporters either denied the substance of the post, objected to what they perceived as ‘nastiness’ or accepted the information as true but insisted they would still vote for Ms White over the alternative Greens (Kaye Gartner) and independent (Jemma Tribe) candidates.
Unfortunately, Ms White’s legal threats and subsequent post removal meant that associated information and documents within the comments were deleted and made no longer available to Shoalhaven electors. Whatever people think about Ms White and her candidacy, voters should still be able to make an informed decision on polling day.
Given the suddenly litigious environment in Shoalhaven, the following is a necessarily bland presentation of publicly-available material.
Collapse of Milton-Ulladulla Out Of School Hours Care
MUOOSHC was an important community service to families in the south of Shoalhaven. An announcement of the collapse of this service appeared in the Milton Ulladulla Times (MUT) in 2012.
Working parents lose service
October 31, 2012 | Milton Ulladulla Times & Sussex Inlet Times
MILTON Ulladulla Out of School Hours Care will close from next Monday (November 5), leaving numerous local families in the lurch.
The closure will also impact on Vacation Care services over the Christmas holiday period, with concerned parents scrambling to find alternative arrangements for their children.
The Times understand that at least 10 people working at the Milton-Ulladulla Hospital rely on the Vacation Care service.
Parents were advised this week that the service had been suspended and that an Extraordinary Special General Meeting would be held at the Dunn Lewis Centre on November 26.
The notice from the MUOOSHC management committee said the group was effectively insolvent and that it was intended to appoint a liquidator to the service at the November 26 meeting.
“These debts have only very recently become known but have accrued over a number of years due to poor and inaccurate book-keeping,” the notice said.
“The Committee/s of recent times have made every effort to establish correct business practices and accurate records – and in the process have uncovered these problems and the associated debts.”
The committee concedes that closing the service will make life “very difficult” for some working parents but says it has no option.
“Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to avoid the service being suspended as legal guidelines need to be followed to protect all concerned.”
“We are all devastated at this outcome,” the management committee said in its notice to parents.
“We understand how vital the service is to families and how it will be missed.”
This report was followed up a week later.
Service may be replaced
November 7, 2012 | Milton Ulladulla Times & Sussex Inlet Times
As reported in last week’s edition of the Times the Milton Ulladulla Out of School Hours Care (MUOOSHC) has closed because of financial problems.
In a letter advising parents of the closure, the management committee said the group was effectively insolvent and that it was intended to appoint a liquidator to the service at an Extraordinary Special General Meeting later this month.
The meeting will be held at the Dunn Lewis Centre in Ulladulla on November 26.
A spokesperson for the committee said debts had only “very recently” become known and accrued over a number of years “due to poor and inaccurate bookkeeping”.
The decision has left many local families scrambling to find out of school hours care for their children.
The closure came at a particularly bad time given that Christmas holidays are just around the corner.
The Times has been told that a number of new providers have expressed an interest in running OOSH in the Milton-Ulladulla region – some of them private, some of them community-based an at least one of them national.
However because of State Government requirements for any use of Ulladulla Public School grounds to be put out to tender, the best possible scenario is for a new service provider to be up and running by the Christmas school holidays.
It means that some parents will be severely inconvenienced between now and then.
The Times has also been told that some staff won’t receive their full entitlements, including superannuation.
Meanwhile, former employee Patricia White has told the Times that she was also devastated by the possible closure of the Milton-Ulladulla OOSHC and that she was also “directly affected”.
“The particular issues affecting the service will be investigated by authorities and would ask that people await the outcome of those investigations before judging or blaming anyone,” she said.
“Much of the relevant information will come out soon.”
Mrs White said she was “gutted” by the closure because it was a vital service for local parents who want to work and who don’t have access to other avenues for before and after school hours care.
“People who use the service know that all staff have given a lot of their time and energy freely to improve our OOSHC and the care provided to children has been excellent and working well.”
There was no attribution for the causes of the collapse provided in the media at the time. Ms White was described as a “former employee” of the service, insisting she was “directly affected” and asked for patience “before judging or blaming anyone”.
Leading Edge Telecoms Legal Dispute
Patricia and Gary White entered into a quagmire of business dealings and disputes after buying Leading Edge Telecoms in 2009. After initially engaging Focal Accounting and Taxation Services (“Focal”) to take care of the financial side of the business, the Whites continued to rely on a bookkeeper who left Focal later in 2009. Business activity statements and taxation returns were left unattended until 2011. A potential retail deal with Telstra fell through in 2012 and Leading Edge Telecoms folded later that year.
The Whites took legal action against 3 individuals and Focal after the collapse of their business. The initial success of their law suit was covered in the Milton Ulladulla Times in March 2013, trumpeting a payout awarded to the couple of almost $0.75M.
HUGE PAYOUT ORDERED
March 19, 2013 | Milton Ulladulla Times & Sussex Inlet Times
Local accounting business sued
AN Ulladulla accounting firm and three people connected to it have been ordered to pay nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in damages after being sued.
When Garry and Patricia White of Ulladulla were preparing to buy Leading Edge Telecoms in March 2009, they engaged Focal Accounting and Taxation Services to help take care of the financial side of the business, including meeting all tax obligations.
At the time Focal was being run by Debbie Geerlings and Darcy Ledger, while the company’s tax portal was registered to Canberra accountant and tax agent, Michael James Gallagher.
Information presented to Justice Judith Gibson in the District Court at Wollongong said Mrs Geerlings left Focal in July 2009 a month before she was declared bankrupt, however Mr and Mrs White were not told of her leaving the company or of her bankruptcy.
Justice Gibson noted, “None of the defendants ever told them (Mr and Mrs White) the true facts, namely that the first defendant (Mrs Geerlings) had parted ways with Focal Accounting shortly before her bankruptcy.”
Mrs Geerlings has again filed for bankruptcy since the court order was handed down against her, Mr Ledger, Mr Gallagher and Focal.
However a statement of affairs attached to the latest bankruptcy paperwork, filed on March 5, listed Mr and Mrs White as creditors with nothing owed, while the only other creditor mentioned was Tony Cotton to whom $1000 was owed.
After she left Focal Mrs Geerlings continued to handle the accounts for Leading Edge Telecoms, however staff superannuation was not paid and taxation obligations were not met, despite continued assurances to Mr and Mrs White that everything was going fine, and they were even in credit with the Australian Taxation Office.
The alarm bells started to ring in April 2011 when the tax office started contacting Focal as business activity statements for Leading Edge Telecoms had not been lodged since the middle of 2009.
Mr Ledger contacted Mr White, who passed the details on to Mrs Geerlings and received an assurance everything would be sorted out, the court was told.
With the tax office ringing daily after the activity statements, they were lodged in July 2011 through Focal Accounting’s tax portal, but Mr White told the court he did not see or sign the documents before they were lodged.
“What was lodged was late and incorrect, and the plaintiffs incurred fines in relation to this and other BAS and tax returns,” Justice Gibson noted.
The incorrect documentation had huge implications as during 2011 Mr and Mrs White were offered the opportunity to take on a new Telstra licence in Ulladulla, and went through the process of receiving approvals from Telstra and their bank to borrow the money they needed to take up the new business.
Mr and Mrs White were using figures and financial statements supplied by Mrs Geerlings, but when the tax office pointed out they were wrong in early 2012 Mr and Mrs White advised Telstra and their bank and the opportunity was lost.
The business was set up by other people, and Leading Edge Telecoms closed a few months later because it became financially unviable, resulting in seven people losing their jobs. Potential earnings from the Telstra business, along with the costs of winding up Leading Edge Telecoms, paying redundancies for their staff, and paying new accountants to sort out the financial mess, form the bulk of the $748,827 judgement awarded to Mr and Mrs White.
In summing up the case Justice Gibson noted Mr and Mrs White had “lost everything as a result of the incompetent financial advice they received”.
“That they received grossly incompetent representation and advice appears to be accepted by everyone, including the defendants,”
Justice Gibson said Mrs Geerlings did not submit a defence to the case, while Mr Ledger, Mr Gallagher and Focal provided a defence in writing on the incorrect forms, but did not appear before the court to make any submissions despite being contacted repeatedly and asked to appear, and the court delaying proceedings so they could argue their case.
The defence submitted by Mr Ledger, Mr Gallagher and Focal said they ended their business relationship with Mrs Geerlings in June 2009, and had no client relationship with Mr and Mrs White and received no payments from them, so did not owe them a duty of care.
The argument was slammed by Justice Gibson, who said the claim the business relationship with Mrs Geerlings ended in the middle of 2009 was “inconsistent” with ABN records that in February 2012 said Focal Accounting was a business partnership between Mrs Geerlings and Mr Ledger.
In addition business records and letters from Focal Accounting “demonstrate that the defendants were still in some sort of business arrangement together up until shortly before the time the plaintiffs commenced proceedings,”
Justice Gibson said. Mr Ledger, Mr Gallagher and Focal owed a duty of care to Mr and Mrs White, Justice Gibson found, because Mrs Geerlings was a bookkeeper rather than an accountant, and did not have the professional expertise to be providing advice on tax matters.
“In lodging these late BAS statements on behalf of an unregistered tax agent, without any checking or disclosure to the plaintiffs of the true situation, the defendants were in breach of their obligations to the plaintiffs, because such conduct amounted to a breach of their obligations as tax agents,” Justice Gibson said
The decision in favour of the Whites by Justice Gibson was immediately appealed and announced in the Milton Ulladulla Times the following week.
Payout appealed
March 26, 2013 | Milton Ulladulla Times & Sussex Inlet Times
AN appeal has been lodged against the nearly three-quarters of a million dollars awarded to Garry and Patricia White following the failure of business ventures.
Mr and Mrs White launched legal action against Ulladulla accounting firm Focal Accounting and Taxation Services and three people connected with the company – Debbie Geerlings and Darcy Ledger who set up the company and were running it as a partnership until Mrs Geerlings left in 2009, and Canberra accountant Michael James Gallagher.
The Whites claimed all were negligent in handling accounts for their business Leading Edge Telecoms, resulting in them missing out on an opportunity to establish a new business, and eventually losing their existing business.
After hearing evidence in the Wollongong District Court Judge Judith Gibson agreed, and awarded the Whites damages amounting to $748,827.
The company’s accounts were predominantly handled by Mrs Geerlings despite the fact she left the company, declared bankruptcy, and was not a qualified accountant.
Judge Gibson found Mr Ledger and Mr Gallagher were also at fault, because they allowed Mrs Geerlings to use their tax portal to lodge business activity statements without checking them, when they knew Mrs Geerlings was not qualified to prepare or lodge them.
An initial hearing on the appeal is scheduled for April 8 in the Court of Appeal.
It didn’t end well for the Whites. The subsequent judgment in November 2014 was far less sympathetic than the win described in the Milton Ulladulla Times the previous year. After 3 amended claims, the judge wrote in part,
I am not persuaded that there is any merit in Mr White’s claim
The decision of the court was that,
- The statement of claim is struck out as against [Focal Accounting and Mr Gallagher]…. and
- [Mr and Mrs White] to pay the [Focal Accounting and Mr Gallagher] costs of the proceedings.
Mr Gallagher went to the Federal bankruptcy court against the Whites in September 2015, filing an affidavit and application seeking compliance with bankruptcy notice number BN182588 issued 1 July 2015.
The matter of Michael James Gallagher v Garry Kenneth White & Anor was adjourned in October 2015 and dismissed in November 2015. It is unclear what the circumstances behind the dismissal were.
Moving on 9 years and in the final days of Shoalhaven’s mayoral election, Mr Gallagher was interviewed on ABC Illawarra radio news on 11 September 2024.
Despite the decision handed down in White v Geerlings in 2014, Mr Gallagher revealed in the ABC interview that he had not received payment of the $250,000 in legal costs from the Whites.
Also, despite the ABC citing the 2014 court decision, Ms White denied losing the case and being ordered to pay Mr Gallagher.
Ms White responded,
“No. We didn’t have to pay any fees at all and we won in the District Court. We were not… we did not repay anything.” – ABC Illawarra News 11/9/2024
She has not explained the disconnect between her insistence of winning in the District Court compared to the published District Court decision in November 2014 and the Federal Bankruptcy Court hearing in 2015.
She says that they did “not repay anything”, Mr Gallagher is reported to be owed $250,000 in legal expenses, yet Ms White offers no explanation why she and her husband have not paid what appears to be a substantial debt.
So. Where does this leave claims about the “financial acumen” of Patricia White?
We at least have some adjudicated information from the courts to rely on. We also have the statement from an alleged creditor.
And we have media statements from Ms White that are difficult to reconcile with the court decision and the creditor.
Given the substantial, incomplete, yet concerning evidence on the public record, ‘financial acumen’ seems an entirely reasonable question for discussion for someone who is presenting themselves for election as leader of a $500 million per year enterprise.
