Councillor Helen Gillett told the counsel assisting the inquiry into Shellharbour City Council that the breakdown in relationships between staff and councillors were "to some extent part and parcel of the entire council".

She is usually not one to create a stir, keeping her head down at council meetings and rarely speaking to the press.

But yesterday as the fifth day of hearings resumed at Albion Park, Cr Gillett insisted all councillors take responsibility for the dire situation.

Not only that, but the council was in such a mess that the government-appointed administrators should stick around for four years, skipping the September local government elections.

Fellow Labor councillor Barry Bird agreed to a point, but he wanted to give residents the opportunity to vote in a new batch this year.

ALP councillor Tim Hore thought it unfair that he and the majority of others he believed had not misbehaved would suffer because of the actions of a few.

Independent councillor Charlie Mifsud argued they had turned the ship around and deserved to be left until the election.

This came at the end of a day of revelations about councillors pitted against each other. Almost all seemed to be the subject of a code of conduct complaint, petty or otherwise.

Cr Barry Bird said he had a standing joke with a couple of other councillors about how certain independent and ALP councillors treated him.

"If I want something put through council I should vote against it and speak against it," he said.

He wrote to the local government minister in November complaining about "blatant politicising of certain councillors". Cr Bird said the "venom" in people's voices at meetings was often obvious.

However, he also accused anti-ALP community members of being on a mission since 2004 to bring down the council.