Strathfield Mayoral Deal Collapse: Threats and Surveillance Claims Go to ICAC

Former independent Strathfield mayor Matthew Blackmore has told NSW ICAC he was threatened, followed and secretly recorded after refusing to hand the mayoralty to Labor.

He gave evidence to the Commission's Operation Rosny inquiry, which is examining allegations against former Labor councillors Sharangan Maheswaran and Karen Pensabene, including claims of blackmail and possible surveillance The Guardian. His account was that he and his family faced threats and blackmail after he walked away from a handshake deal to quit as mayor ABC.

The deal, Blackmore said, was struck in 2022. He would serve as mayor first, then resign so Pensabene could serve out the term. The inquiry heard Maheswaran wanted Labor in the leadership at council, state and federal level ahead of the 2023 state election to bolster campaign efforts.

The broader context here is that rotate-the-mayor deals are common in hung chambers, where no party has the numbers. Think of it as taking turns on the mower. They are almost never written down. That is usually the point.

In January 2023, Blackmore told Maheswaran and Pensabene he wanted to stay on. On his evidence, the reply was blunt. Maheswaran said it would take about six weeks to take him down for crossing him. He then claimed he had operatives following Blackmore for five months, taking photos and recording conversations without his knowledge.

Blackmore also alleged his children were secretly recorded ABC. He told the inquiry Maheswaran accused him of using the mayoral vehicle for a family holiday and knew the location of the vacation. Soon after the falling-out he began getting inquiries from News Corp journalists and YouTuber FriendlyJordies, which he linked in his evidence to the dispute.

Pensabene's role, on the messages tendered, is more complicated. She messaged Blackmore warning that Maheswaran was "out of control" and was printing 20,000 attack flyers. After an attack flyer was left on his car, she warned him that "everything so far is less than 10% of what is coming". Blackmore told the inquiry Maheswaran said all harassment would stop if Blackmore resigned from the mayoralty.

The inquiry sits well beyond a council stoush. Operation Rosny investigates allegations involving possible offences under the Electoral Funding Act and other matters, with a public inquiry that started on 27 July 2026 and was expected to run for eight weeks NSW ICAC. Property developer Jean Nassif was listed to give evidence alongside Blackmore on 14 September 2026, and the Commission's earlier framing links Nassif to political powerbrokers, councils and Catholic schools SMH. The Commission has published a witness list and restricts its livestream on the condition it is not recorded, published or shared.

In my view, ICAC regulars will focus less on the broken promise than on the method — coercion, surveillance and the informal economy of numbers on a council floor. The Commission often starts with funding and donation rules, then tests the conduct around them. The evidentiary questions are familiar. What was agreed, what was threatened, who knew, and what can be proved beyond competing recollections and angry texts. For councils, it is a warning about split terms. They work until they don't, and when they collapse there is no umpire, only leverage. These are allegations before ICAC, not findings, and Blackmore's evidence is yet to be tested against that of Maheswaran, Pensabene and others.