COFFS Harbour Mayoral candidate Roger Pryce has strongly refuted an allegation made against him by Cr Sally Townley that he pays the Coffs Harbour City Council Elections 2021 Forum Facebook page to publish his social media comments.

Cr Townley stated “it’s Rodger’s paid advertising channel not mine” in a social media comment on the Facebook page last week, in response to a post on the page about Cr Townley not disclosing her ownership of a small parcel of land in the Coffs Harbour local government area.

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Mr Pryce contacted News Of The Area following Cr Townley’s public allegation to state that the accusation was false and that he believed the comment had been made deliberately by Cr Townley.

“She knew what it was that she was doing and I think that’s poor, I really do,” Mr Pryce stated.

“It’s designed to actually cast aspersions against my reputation, and it’s probably been successful in doing that.

“She’s been a councillor for nine years or something, she is aware of the Code of Conduct of Council, so I cannot actually accept that she didn’t know what she was doing.”

Mr Pryce said Cr Townley was very quick to apologise for the social media comment, once contacted about it.

“My response to that was ‘unfortunately Sally no matter what you do to redress the comments you made, you throw enough mud, some will stick’,” Mr Pryce said.

“I’ve only been involved in this for a matter of months, but there’s a constant flow of people making accusations and stating events that they believe happened and I think we’re duty bound to make sure you do your research first before you come out and say anything.”

When contacted by News Of The Area about the comment, Cr Townley stated that she had been incorrectly informed.

“Social media is a powerful tool and we sometimes forget that it can be easy to inadvertently hurt someone,” Cr Townley said.

“I had heard from a couple of people that Rob Trezise (moderator of the Coffs Harbour City Council Elections 2021 Forum Facebook page) was being paid by Mr Pryce for his work as a moderator of a page, which would not be unusual in a campaign.

“When I expressed this, both Mr Trezise and Mr Pryce let me know that this was not the case, Mr Trezise is acting freely as a moderator of a facebook page and is not on Mr Pryce’s payroll.”

Cr Townley said as soon as she was informed of this she removed the comment and apologised to Mr Pryce.

“I guess the lesson here is to always seek clarification from the person involved first and not believe everything we hear,” Cr Townley stated.

“It’s best to simply express our own opinions and not conjecture publicly about other people.

“It was not necessary for me to make any comment about Mr Pryce or any other candidate and I am sure I won’t in future.”

In regards to his proliferation on the Coffs Harbour City Council Elections 2021 Forum Facebook page, Roger stated that “any candidate that stands (for Council) is automatically authorised to make posts on that page”.

“I’ve been very active for the past four or five months because I am passionate about what I see that I can contribute to assert change, so I’ve been out there a lot,” Mr Pryce said.

“Everybody has the equal opportunity that I have had to put their policies, put their stance out there, tell people, I’ve been doing it for months.”

Coffs Harbour Council 2021 Election Facebook page moderator Rob Trezise has removed Cr Townley’s comment from the Facebook page and has stated on the page that he has “never taken any payment in cash or kind from any Candidate and do not intent (sic) to do so”.

Roger Pryce said unfortunately this was not the first time he had been defamed on social media, after previously being labelled as “misogynistic, a poor farmer, and old” by another individual over Facebook.

“To hear those things, I didn’t appreciate,” Mr Pryce stated.

“I have been subjected to quite a lot of discriminatory behaviour.”

In this instance, Mr Pryce took out a defamation suit against the individual, which was proven in his favour.

“I don’t appreciate this attack (by Cr Townley) and other attacks which are actually complete fabrications to harm me and also to harm my family,” Roger stated.

“I am positive that this is just a ploy designed to put out there some doubt on my character.”

By Emma DARBIN