Mr Allen’s report into the merger proposal was branded “a primary school failure” by Mayor Marianne Saliba, who highlighted he had used Wikipedia references.

Liberal councillor Kellie Marsh also slammed the report, saying it was “very, very, very light on content”.

“My two mischievous boys would pull any trick in the book when it comes to homework, but never would they try a Wikipedia reference,” Cr Marsh said. “But a Wikipedia reference is what we had in our delegate report about sinking our city.”

Likewise, Paul Rankin said the report was “amateurish at best” and suggested a Year 12 or first year university commerce student would have done better.

The outspoken Cr Rankin, who has previously said the state government was “actually a terrorist organisation” because of its merger plans and accused Wollongong councillors of wanting to “pillage this community for everything that it’s worth”, could not help himself from having another swipe at the northern council.

“They can get stuffed,” he said, before being censured by Cr Saliba. “I know this is a council meeting, but we’re fighting for the survival of our LGA and here we have a council that is happy to sit on their hands because they don’t want to rock the government boat.”

He said Wollongong councillors should have “got on board” to join Shellharbour’s legal action.

“I’d be very surprised if they do join our legal action, because all through this process they’ve sat up there, they’ve not said one thing or committed to anything. We’re doing all the fighting, and if we win they should be thanking us and our community for what we’ve done.”

“We need to fight to the death, and if by chance and luck it all works out and we win, Wollongong should be sending our residents flowers and chocolate for taking the fight to the state government.”