When he dislikes someone, he does not merely argue with them. He reaches for the same small pile of labels: Nazi, neo-Nazi, cooker, racist, grifter, dickhead. Sometimes the target is a politician. Sometimes it is a media figure. Sometimes it is Elon Musk. Sometimes it is a whole class of people who vote the wrong way, watch the wrong outlet, follow the wrong person, or disagree with Geelan’s left-leaning view of the world.

That matters because Geelan presents himself as the one calling out extremism. But his own public output tells a messier story. Read enough of it and a pattern appears: opponents are not wrong, mistaken, ill-informed, or politically different. They are morally contaminated. They are Nazis, Nazi-adjacent, cooker clowns, rednecks, racists, or enemies of decent society.

That is not journalism. It is political sorting by insult.

Geelan’s own site gives the clearest example. In January 2025, VicNews published an article titled Elon Musk makes two Nazi salutes at Trump’s inauguration. The article did not hedge the point. It stated that Musk conducted Nazi salutes and framed the gesture through Hitler and Sieg Heil.

A few hours later, VicNews published Hitler and Goebbels return to power, casting Donald Trump as Hitler and Elon Musk as Goebbels. Days later came Nazi Musk comes unstuck. The headline alone tells you the method.

This is not a one-off emotional flourish. On Bluesky, Geelan kept going.

On 11 June 2026, the VicNews Bluesky account posted: “If you trust Musk, then you’d trust Adolf Hitler.” In the same post, Starlink was described as having no place in Australia and something that “should be as banned as MDMA.” Source: Bluesky post, 11 June 2026, verified through Bluesky’s public ATProto API.

On 12 June 2026, he wrote that “the difference between Trump and Hitler is nothing”, then said Trump was “upholding Hitler’s legacy.” Source: Bluesky post, 12 June 2026, verified through Bluesky’s public ATProto API.

On 2 July 2026, he posted: “Think Twitter in its early days, before the Nazi bought it.” Source: Bluesky post, 2 July 2026, verified through Bluesky’s public ATProto API.

This is the same man who regularly throws “cooker” at people he does not like. In a sample of roughly 4,000 recent Bluesky feed items from March to July 2026, the VicNews account used “Nazi” or “Nazis” dozens of times and “cooker” dozens of times. The exact count depends on whether reposted items and hashtags are included, but the pattern is not subtle.

Some examples:

• “Unlike cookers and Hanson’s neo-Nazi mates…” Source: Bluesky post, 2 July 2026.
• “Hanson’s followers are all MAGA racists and Nazis.” Source: Bluesky post, 11 June 2026.
• “These cookers aren’t just cooked…” followed by “deluded dickheads.” Source: Bluesky post, 22 May 2026.

Geelan may argue that his targets deserve the label. Sometimes he is writing about actual neo-Nazis or organisations accused of extremist links. Those cases should be judged on evidence. But his rhetoric does not stay there. It spills outward until the label becomes a general-purpose political weapon.

That is the part worth calling out.

The accusation “Nazi” is not a toy. It is not a hashtag for people who annoy you. It is not a shortcut for “right-wing person”, “person I dislike”, “person who appeared with someone I dislike”, or “person whose audience contains people I dislike.” When the label is thrown around constantly, it stops being moral clarity and becomes moral bullying.

And here is the hypocrisy.

Geelan claims to oppose fascism, yet his own public commentary repeatedly uses the tools of authoritarian politics:

1. Collective blame. He does not always stop at named public figures. He extends condemnation to whole groups: Hanson followers, MAGA supporters, Americans, “cookers”, and “Yank seppos”. In one July post he wrote, “If ya near a Yank, fucking run.” Source: Bluesky post, 2 July 2026.
2. Guilt by association. People become Nazi-adjacent because they interviewed the wrong person, shared the wrong platform, followed the wrong cause, or moved in the wrong political orbit. That is not analysis. That is contamination logic.
3. Dehumanising shorthand. “Cookers”, “rednecks”, “dickheads”, “gronks”, “seppos”, “Nazis”. The vocabulary is not meant to persuade. It is meant to mark people as beneath argument.
4. A taste for banning and reporting. In the Musk/Starlink post, Geelan did not only criticise Musk. He said Starlink “should be as banned as MDMA.” In another May 2026 Bluesky thread about X accounts, he said accounts had been reported and that Musk had been reported to ASIO and the AFP. Source: Bluesky post, 17 May 2026.

That is why the issue is not whether Ashley Geelan is literally a Nazi. That would be a stupid claim, and it would let him dodge the actual criticism.

The issue is that Geelan’s public work shows a deeply illiberal habit: he sorts political opponents into enemy categories, attaches maximum moral stigma, and then treats the label as proof.

He does this while accusing others of the same poison.

There is a word for politics that reduces opponents to an impure enemy class. It is not journalism. It is not fact-checking. It is not even especially brave. It is the oldest authoritarian trick in the book: decide who the bad people are, repeat the label until your side stops seeing them as people, and call it righteousness.

Geelan can call that anti-fascism if he likes.

From here, it looks a lot more like projection.

Source Notes

Bluesky account researched: victoriannews.com.au, display name “Geelan Mitchell Media”, DID did:plc:6pub6jhcmmgjqxoacwsuuglv. Public profile and feed were checked through Bluesky’s public ATProto API on 2 July 2026. The browser view of individual Bluesky posts required sign-in, but the post records were available through the public API.

Recent feed sample: approximately 3,998 author-feed items from 23 March 2026 to 2 July 2026. Local text filtering found 88 items containing “nazi”, 17 containing “nazis”, 76 containing “cooker”, 48 containing “cookers”, 45 containing “musk”, 17 containing “elon”, and 11 containing “hitler”. These counts are a research sample, not a complete lifetime archive.

VicNews / Victorian News articles cited:

• Elon Musk makes two Nazi salutes at Trump’s inauguration
• Hitler and Goebbels return to power
• Nazi Musk comes unstuck
• Every politician and public speaker has made the salute, Musk claims in bizarre rant
• Bec Freedom calls for volunteers for her next Nazi rally
• Monica Smit, of Reignite Democracy Australia and neo-Nazi has some tallow to sell you

Key Bluesky posts cited:

• 2 July 2026: “before the Nazi bought it”
• 2 July 2026: “cookers and Hanson’s neo-Nazi mates”
• 11 June 2026: “If you trust Musk, then you’d trust Adolf Hitler”
• 12 June 2026: “the difference between Trump and Hitler is nothing”
• 11 June 2026: “Hanson’s followers are all MAGA racists and Nazis”
• 2 July 2026: “If ya near a Yank, fucking run”
• 22 May 2026: “deluded dickheads”
• 27 June 2026: journalists “defend cookers and racists”

On Wednesday morning, he put something very different on Bluesky.

In a public thread from the Geelan Mitchell Media account at @victoriannews.com.au, Geelan described buying a packet of cigarettes from a smoke shop for cash. He gave the price as $14, compared it with the supermarket price of about $45, and then repeatedly made clear he knew the cheaper product was not legitimate.

His own words are the story here.

Archived Bluesky screenshots

The Bluesky posts have been archived as screenshots rather than relying on live Bluesky links. The full thread and individual posts are linked in the sources below; the most pertinent admission is reproduced here because it is the point of the article.

• He said there were four illicit smoke shops within walking distance, selling packs of 20 cigarettes for $15.
• He said he could not remember the last time he bought legitimate cigarettes.
• He said he had been doing this for “over a decade now at least”.
• He later wrote: “Ain’t bought legitimate smokes for over a decade” and “I haven’t bought legitimate smokes for over a decade myself.”

That is not a confused consumer accidentally buying the wrong packet once. That is a long-running, knowing admission of buying from the illicit tobacco market.

The black market he says he uses

Victoria’s illegal tobacco market is not a harmless discount scheme. It is the same market authorities have been trying to shut down because it is tied to organised crime, arson, extortion, tax evasion and violence.

Victoria’s tobacco licensing regime has been in force since 1 February 2026. Tobacco Licensing Victoria says businesses selling tobacco in Victoria need a licence, and businesses that keep selling without one are committing an offence. The regulator also says Victoria has some of Australia’s strongest penalties for illicit tobacco offences: selling illicit tobacco can mean fines of up to $376,380 or up to 15 years jail for individuals, and more than $1.8 million for companies.

The enforcement page is written for sellers and tobacco businesses, not for Geelan personally as a smoker. That distinction matters. But it does not rescue the behaviour he described. He did not claim to be confused about what he was buying. He contrasted “legitimate smokes” with “illicit” ones, named local illicit shops, and explained why he chooses the black-market product.

In other words, Geelan has not merely commented on Victoria’s illicit tobacco problem. He has publicly placed himself inside the demand side of it.

This was posted while enforcement is escalating

The timing makes the thread even stranger.

Only days ago, the Australian Border Force announced Operation TEMPEST, a joint operation across Victoria and Tasmania involving the ABF, Victoria Police, Tobacco Licensing Victoria, the TGA and other agencies. The operation targeted 20 locations, including retailers, warehouses, post depots and Melbourne international flights.

The Victorian results alone were not small: more than 1.6 million illicit cigarettes, 1.8 tonnes of loose-leaf tobacco, more than 5,400 vaping devices, 11,107 nicotine pouches, 2,013 nitrous oxide canisters and more than $71,000 cash. Seven people of interest were found with known links to the illicit tobacco trade.

ABF Commander Greg Dowse was blunt about the wider damage, saying the purchase of cheap, under-the-counter cigarettes funds other serious crimes, including drug trafficking and violence.

That is the system Geelan says he has been feeding for years.

The “everyone does it” defence

Geelan’s thread tries to turn the admission into an argument about tax and pricing. His point is simple enough: legal cigarettes are expensive, illegal cigarettes are cheaper, so people buy the cheaper ones.

There is a policy debate there. Tobacco excise, prohibition-style incentives, criminal profit margins and enforcement failure are all fair subjects. Plenty of Victorians are angry about the current mess.

But none of that changes the admission.

Geelan did not write, “I worry people might be buying illegal tobacco.” He wrote that he bought a packet from a smoke shop that morning for cash. He did not write, “Some people haven’t bought legitimate cigarettes for years.” He wrote that he had not bought legitimate cigarettes for over a decade.

This is the same person who runs a news-branded account and routinely comments on crime, government failure and public safety. Yet when the crime economy is convenient, he appears to treat it as a household budgeting tip.

What Geelan admitted

The narrow, fair reading is this:

• Geelan publicly says he buys cigarettes from smoke shops for cash at prices far below the legal retail price.
• He publicly describes nearby shops as illicit smoke shops.
• He publicly says he cannot remember the last time he bought legitimate cigarettes.
• He publicly says this has gone on for over a decade.

Whether enforcement bodies would treat a buyer’s public admission as something to investigate is up to them. The documented fact is that Geelan has posted a first-person account of knowingly participating in the illicit tobacco market, at the exact time Victoria is trying to choke that market off.

For a man who likes to present himself as a news operator, that is quite a confession.

Sources

• Geelan Mitchell Media / Victorian News Bluesky posts, 1 July 2026, archived as screenshots: 02:13 UTC screenshot, 02:15 UTC screenshot, 02:18 UTC screenshot, 02:19 UTC screenshot, 02:22 UTC thread screenshot, and 02:28 UTC screenshot.
• Australian Border Force: Operation TEMPEST sweeps VIC and TAS in major illicit tobacco and vaping crackdown, 26 June 2026.
• Tobacco Licensing Victoria, updated 4 February 2026.
• Tobacco Licensing Victoria enforcement powers, including 2026-2027 penalties.
• Victorian Department of Health: Making a report or complaint – tobacco reform.

Ashley Geelan has found the one form of journalism he cannot handle: his own

There is an old boxing line about a fighter with a glass jaw. He can throw punches all night, but the first one that comes back makes the whole act wobble.

That is where Ashley Geelan appears to be this week.

For years, Geelan has dressed up fact-light, emotionally loaded reporting as public-interest journalism. Names in headlines. Personal details. Breathless framing. Big claims, thin proof, and very little care for the people on the receiving end. But when someone mirrors that same loose, theatrical style back at him, suddenly the tone changes. Suddenly, democracy is at stake. Suddenly, a Facebook post is not just a Facebook post. It is harassment, stalking, lies, damage, family impact, and a reason to stand up.

The irony is doing all the heavy lifting here.

The article that started the tantrum

On June 19, 2026, VicNews published an article titled “Former Mernda footballer harasses journalist online”. The piece was written by Ashley Geelan and concerned a Facebook post that claimed Geelan had barricaded himself inside a building near Cramer Street in Reservoir.

The VicNews article says Victoria Police told the outlet that Geelan was not involved in the incident. If that is accurate, the original Facebook claim was wrong. Fine. Correcting false claims is fair game.

But Geelan did not stop at correction. He turned it into a full personal spectacle. The article named the alleged poster repeatedly, tied him to a football club, reproduced abusive private messages, framed the conduct as possible harassment and stalking, and originally used the wrong footballer’s image before publishing a correction.

That last part matters. VicNews later admitted: “The original image posted in this article was not of David Hutchinson, but of another former Mernda FNC football player.” The outlet apologised for the error, then insisted the rest of the report stood.

So Geelan’s complaint about inaccurate personal targeting arrived inside an article that inaccurately targeted someone else with the wrong image. You could not script a cleaner example of the glass jaw problem if you tried.

The meltdown after publication

After publishing the article, Geelan posted it to Bluesky through the Geelan Mitchell Media account. Screenshots supplied to Geelan Lies show him defending the article in a string of emotional replies.

He wrote that he would rather be reporting on other matters, but said he would “stand up” when faced with what he called provable lies affecting his family. In another reply, he argued that people who publish lies do not get to avoid being named. He then speculated that the subject of the article was more worried because his football club and league now knew about it.

That is the interesting part. Geelan was not just correcting the record. He was broadcasting consequences. Club. League. Damage control. Reputation. Employment. All the pressure points he normally seems comfortable applying to other people.

In a later reply, when another user raised the risk of defamation and reputational damage, Geelan dismissed the idea of courts and lawyers. He wrote that the problem was already solved, then asked: what if the person’s employer saw what he had published? He finished by saying he had corrected the record and that the fallout was “their, not my, problem.”

That is not merely a correction. That is the punishment being said out loud.

Then came the correction about the wrong photo.

And even after that, he kept going. Another screenshot shows him suggesting that the account connected to the story had disappeared shortly before the club president contacted him. A reply from another Bluesky user warned that publishing something like this publicly without proof was serious because it could do real reputational damage.

Exactly.

When Geelan gets Geelaned

The glass jaw is not that Geelan objected to a false claim. Anyone would object to being falsely dragged into a police incident. The glass jaw is that Geelan seems genuinely shocked that other people might play by the same rough rules he uses.

Loose claim? Public name? Emotional framing? Social pressure? Reputation damage? A headline designed to make one person look terrible?

That is not some alien tactic. That is the Geelan method with the mirror turned around.

And once the mirror was up, he reacted exactly like someone who can dish it out but cannot take it. The public replies were not calm journalism. They read like a man furious that his own formula had been applied to him.

He has every right to correct a falsehood. He does not have a right to pretend his own outlet has always handled other people’s names, reputations, and private lives with surgical care. The wrong-photo correction alone should have caused a pause. Instead, the response was essentially: yes, we used the wrong image, but the rest stands.

The real lesson

Geelan’s article is useful, just not in the way he intended. It shows how quickly he recognises reputational harm when he is the subject. It shows how comfortable he is escalating a dispute into a public naming exercise. It shows how little room there is between “I was wronged” and “here is a full public article about the person I blame.”

Most of all, it shows the glass jaw.

Ashley Geelan wants the freedom to publish sharp, personal, emotionally charged material about others. But when the same style comes back at him, he calls it harassment, talks about family impact, and turns the grievance into content.

That is not strength. That is a very fragile chin.

Sources:

• VicNews: “Former Mernda footballer harasses journalist online”, published June 19, 2026.
• Reader-supplied screenshots of Geelan Mitchell Media’s Bluesky thread and replies, supplied June 20, 2026.

VicNews has published a Judy Clements OAM story that, in our view, amounts to blatant plagiarism of the North Central Review / Whittlesea Review’s reporting.

The original North Central Review article, “Judy Clements earns OAM”, reported Ms Clements’ Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the Whittlesea community. It covered her 50 years with the Whittlesea Agricultural Society, advocacy for farming, work after Black Saturday, service to local history and cemetery organisations, and her City of Whittlesea Citizen of the Year recognition.

VicNews later published a story with the same headline and a structure that tracks the North Central Review piece almost paragraph-for-paragraph. The VicNews article does not visibly credit the North Central Review, link to the original article, or acknowledge that another local newsroom appears to have done the reporting work first.

That is not normal attribution. It is not ethical aggregation. It is another publisher’s local journalism being repackaged and misrepresented as VicNews content.

Why this is an ethical problem

Local journalism depends on trust, attribution and fair dealing. If a publication uses another outlet’s work, the honest thing is to name the source, link to it and make clear what has been independently verified. Passing off another newsroom’s story as your own misleads readers and disrespects the people who did the work.

The ethical concern is sharper because Ashley Geelan presents VicNews as a community news outlet. Community news should not mean taking a competitor’s work without credit. It should not mean hiding the source of a story while benefiting from another publisher’s reporting. And it should not mean pretending copied material is original journalism.

In our view, this raises serious questions about Geelan’s editorial standards, respect for other journalists, and willingness to be transparent with readers.

Unfortunately this is not the first time Ashley Geelan has been caught stealing an honest journalists work.  This shamefully is a common occurrence.

Evidence preserved

Because copied material can be edited or removed after being called out, we preserved a PDF copy of the VicNews article as it appeared on 9 June 2026 at 04:39 UTC.

The issue is simple: Judy Clements’ OAM was a significant Whittlesea community story. The North Central Review covered it. VicNews then appears to have copied the work without proper credit. Readers deserve better than that, and so do the local journalists whose work appears to have been lifted.

Sources

• The North Central Review / Whittlesea Review: Judy Clements earns OAM
• VicNews: Judy Clements earns OAM
• Archived PDF copy of the VicNews article, captured 9 June 2026 at 04:39 UTC
• Governor-General: King’s Birthday 2026 Honours List media notes, Order of Australia OAM Medal

The public catalogue record says something less convenient.

State Library Victoria has a record for VicNews / Victorian Orienteering Association Inc.. It lists the contributor as the Victorian Orienteering Association, the publisher as “Melbourne : The Association”, and the holdings as running from June/July 1979 through December 1992/January 1993. The notes say later issues had the subtitle “official newsletter of the Victorian Orienteering Association”.

That matters because Geelan’s own line is that his VicNews began in August 1992. On the library record, the Orienteering Victoria use was already old by then. It was not a new name he conjured out of nowhere. It was a title already sitting in the Victorian public record.

What the records show

• State Library Victoria: VicNews / Victorian Orienteering Association Inc., published by the Victorian Orienteering Association, with holdings from 1979 June/July to 1992 Dec/1993 Jan.
• Trove / National Library of Australia: Geelan’s VicNews : the Victorian news record says it was printed and published by Ashley Stephen Geelan from 1992, with ISSN 1038-6971 and a note that from May 2020 it was published by Geelan Media Pty Ltd.
• ISSN Portal: ISSN 1038-6971 currently resolves to VicNews, medium print, country Australia. Archived 2021 and 2023 captures show the same title and record modification date of 23 November 2019.
• NLA online record: The online VicNews : the Victorian News record is a 2020- Geelan Media Pty Ltd online resource with ISSN 2652-354X, and says it is also available in print.

The careful version is this: the current ISSN records now point to Geelan’s VicNews records. But the title VicNews itself did not start with him. Orienteering Victoria had a VicNews publication for years before his claimed August 1992 start, and its run overlaps the beginning of his version.

So when Geelan talks as though VicNews is his original brand, the public record gets in the way. The fiction is exclusivity. The name was already in use.

Other uses of the name

I checked for other reliable uses of the name. The one that matters is the Victorian Orienteering Association record, because it is a library record, it predates Geelan, and it overlaps his claimed start. State Library Victoria also records the later title Orienteer Victoria and the other title Vic news for that publication.

The other main public records are Geelan’s later print and online records: Trove’s print record for VicNews : the Victorian news, and the NLA online record for the Geelan Media Pty Ltd online version. I did not find a stronger unrelated modern VicNews use in public catalogue/search results than the Orienteering Victoria one.

Geelan Media did not last

There is also a later company detail worth keeping separate from the title-history point. ABN Lookup records GEELAN MEDIA PTY LTD, ACN 640 523 593, with the business name “The Victorian News” registered from 27 May 2020. The same ABN record shows the ABN status as cancelled from 7 October 2022.

That does not decide who first used the name VicNews. It does show that the later Geelan Media company record is not a live ongoing company wrapper for the publication today.

The part still worth checking

There is one narrower question still worth pinning down: whether ISSN 1038-6971 was ever attached directly to the Victorian Orienteering Association’s VicNews record before the later Geelan record. I have not seen that on the public State Library Victoria record. What I can verify is the prior title use, the overlap, and the current ISSN records.

That is enough to puncture the big claim. It is not enough to pretend a clean chain of ownership has been proved in either direction. The honest finding is simpler: Geelan did not own the VicNews name from the beginning. Orienteering Victoria was there first.

Sources

• State Library Victoria: VicNews / Victorian Orienteering Association Inc.
• Trove: VicNews : the Victorian news
• ISSN Portal: ISSN 1038-6971
• National Library of Australia: VicNews : the Victorian News, online record
• ABN Lookup: GEELAN MEDIA PTY LTD, ABN 26 640 523 593
• Geelan’s 2 June 2026 Bluesky post claiming the National Library granted VicNews an ISSN to him and his school friends

Geelanlies.com is back online.

We paused the site before Geelan’s court appearances because it was right to let the legal process run its course. That pause was not a retreat, and it was not because the issues had gone away. It was a deliberate hiatus while the courts did their work.

That process has now had time to run, and we believe it is time for Geelan to be held to account once more.

The article we are using as the basis for this post reported on serious court matters involving Geelan and the consequences that followed. We will continue to focus on the record: court outcomes, contemporaneous reporting, public claims, and the facts that can be checked.

Geelanlies.com exists to document the pattern, preserve the evidence, and make sure that misleading claims are answered with sourced material. We will not be rushed, and we will not publish lightly, but we are back.

More updates will follow.

This information has come to light as part of legal proceedings which took place at the Heidelberg Magistrates Court on 7th Jan 2020.

Geelan appears to be trying to defend the indefensible.  In this typically moronic move it is likely that Geelan will be handed larger sentences cutting off their nose despite their face.

The legal proceedings have now been adjourned until the 10/3/2020.

Geelan Lies suggests that Geelan may be poorly advised and may be suffering from a victim complex egged on by Kerry Ann.  One can only imagine the deluded conversations going on in the housing commission house these days!

One also has to ask can Geelan refrain from posting online for another two months, we suspect not.  We also need to ask has his clear breach (registration of “Long Media”) been taken into account?

We at Geelan Lies have a strong view that Geelan needs to be incarcerated until such time that his attitude towards others improves, we will keep bringing you news on Geelan and please contact us with anything on Geelan you may have.

Lets make the internet a better place.

Google Analytics say that traffic to Geelan’s blog plummeted by 54.03 per cent in October. This follows a similar slump in September.

According to SimilarWeb and Google Analytics, Geelan’s website total traffic was 176 visits a day, i.e. 5,470 for the entire month.

There was an 89.44 per cent bounce rate of visitors who steered away from his site within 43 seconds, leaving just 19 real visits a day.

There would be more visits if you put a moustache on a test pattern.

Kinglake people have totally rejected Geelan as a reliable source of any local news.

So much for the 24/7 Kinglake news site that Geelan promised when he first undertook his journalism studies at La Trobe University, at the taxpayers’ expense.

Earlier this year, Geelan was boasting of more than one million hits to his website in two months.

This would have meant 16,666 visits a day.

In truth, it was more like 16 visits a day, an exaggeration by a multiple of one thousand.

Geelan lies.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

We will leave the rest of this article live for transparency. We got it wrong.

The team at Geelan Lies has reason to believe that Ashley Stephen Geelan may already be a guest of Her Majesty’s, awaiting his sentence for multiple breaches of multiple court orders.

It is believed that Geelan has been remanded due to the court’s view that he could not refrain from his abusive and threatening behaviour toward multiple Murrindindi personalities, including the newly elected Mayor.

The supporting evidence that Geelan is, in fact in jail, would include total ‘radio silence’ on all of his social media accounts and blogs.

We are all well aware that Geelan does not possess the discipline to refrain from posting his usual attention seeking drivel, even if ordered by a court to cease and desist.

We are awaiting further news, pending Geelan’s 10/12/2019 court appearance.

Geelan is no stranger to the law and this week his rants, abuse and personal attacks seemed to have caught up with him.

As published in The Local Paper on 04/11/2019:

Police questioned Kinglake Ranges News publisher Ashley Geelan at the weekend following an alleged potential threat against the personal safety of Murrindindi Shire Mayor Cr Leigh Dunscombe. 

Geelan was charged, and released on bail to appear in the Magistrates’ Court next week.

Geelan, 41, journalism student, of Reservoir (formerly of Kinglake), is alleged to have sent an internet message to a third party in which he said he had given Cr Dunscombe’s home address to “enforcers”.

“I met some of these men at around 3am this morning. I gave them your, Leigh Dunscombe’s, Ash Long’s and [redacted] home address. What they – whomever they are – do with it ain’t up to me,” said the alleged message, which was passed on to Police.

Geelan’s alleged message to the third party said: “I advise you as a friend to walk from the lot real f——- fast. That is if you’d like to have a home to return to! … I’m walking away. I don’t want to be killed by bikies. Some may.”

Geelan was said to have alleged that an associate of his had “made a phone call and called in a favour”.

Police are said to have sought to interviewed Geelan immediately after they became aware of the alleged potential threat to Cr Dunscombe and others. 

It is understood that Geelan appeared before a Magistrate in an out-of-sessions Court hearing on Sunday afternoon (Nov. 3).

Geelan was bailed to appear before Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court at 10am on Tuesday, December 10.

Geelan is alleged to have breached the conditions of a two-year Personal Safety Intervention Order issued against him earlier this year.

Under the interim order, Geelan is prohibited from “publish [ing] on the internet, by email or other electronic communication any material
about the protected person(s)”.

A final order, sought by newspaper editor Ash Long, was granted by Magistrate Ian McGrane at Heidelberg Court on April 16. 

The latest further allegations came as Geelan late last month published extravagant claims about Kinglake Police. The geelanlies.com website says that a Magistrate issued a ‘cease and desist’ notice against Geelan late in October. His posts were subsequently removed from his website, and Facebook and Twitter.

On Wednesday last week (Oct. 30), Geelan made claims on the internet that a number of Murrindindi identities had been placed on the Sexual Offenders’ Register. He offered no evidence to back these seemingly unsubstantiated claims.

Geelan this year made allegations that Murrindindi Shire Council had been involved in im-proper conduct. Council CEO Craig Lloyd wrote to Geelan, saying that the allegations were without foundation, and advised that if Geelan had any evidence, he had a responsibility to pass that information to the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission.

The team at Geelan Lies suspect we may not see or hear from Geelan and his online abuse between now and the time sentence is handed down by the judge.

If anyone sees or hears from Geelan, please let us know.

It appears Geelan may finally get what is coming to him in the form of another offical sanction.

One can only hope that this time it is serious jail time and that he learns his lesson. We here at Geelan Lies very much doubt this will form any kind of real lesson.

Geelan used his Kinglake Ranges News blog to malign the reputation of Craig Lloyd, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Murrindindi Shire Council.

Mr Lloyd, a former policeman, has a hard-won and impeccable reputation in Victoria’s local government arena.

Geelan’s posts include wrongful allegations that people connected with the council have acted in a wrongful way.

One of the allegations was that unspecified payments had been made by a Kinglake West-Pheasant Creek planning permit applicant to an unspecified person or people.

Mr Lloyd wrote immediately to Geelan, requesting that the post be removed immediately.

Mr Lloyd said that if Geelan had credible evidence against any council person, it was Geelan’s responsibility to report those allegations to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).

Geelan has published further slurs against the council, Mr Lloyd, and Deputy Mayor Cr Leigh Dunscombe.

In a bizarre series of posts last Christmas (2018), Ashley Geelan made baseless allegations that Cr Dunscombe was hacking Geelan’s computer system at a Robertson Rd house in Kinglake by remote control.

Geelan targetted Cr Dunscombe for perceived shortcomings in his role as a Councillor and Deputy Mayor.

Geelan has recently published more accusations against the Council, claiming that it has behaved in some form of inappropriate way in its purchases of newspaper advertising space.

In another bizarre claim, Geelan claimed that the Council owed him at least $20,000 for publishing its advertisements in another media outlet’s products. Geelan revealed that he owed $20,000 unpaid rates to Murrindindi Shire Council relating to his half-share of a property in Robertson Road, Kinglake.

Murrindindi Shire Council is understood to have referred Mr Geelan’s behaviour to a top Melbourne law firm that specialises in reputational damage.

In another legal matter in actions with Mr Jack Russell of Yea, the Council has spent more than $100,000 on legal advice.

It is as if he is concerned that his computer drives will be seized, and the files thereon used against him in multiple potential prosecutions.

A perfect storm from the many enemies he has created through his irresponsible internet publishing has arrived.

Geelan has this month gone on a paranoid, obsessive drive of deleting hundreds of previous posts on his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

He has blocked public access to his Muck Rack account, which detailed most of the stories he has filed at his Kinglake Ranges News website.

His panic started immediately after a Victorian magistrate ordered to ‘cease and desist’ his dodgy behaviour; this was precipitated by Geelan’s published accusations against the Victoria Police at Kinglake. 

Geelan has since removed posts relating to parties that he has defamed on the internet over past years, including the Kinglake Police Station, Victoria Police, Centrelink and Medicare staff, The Local Paper, Ash Long, Murrundindi Shire Council and its individual councillors including Cr Leigh Dunscombe, plus the patrons, operators, and owners of the Kinglake Pub.

A network of local Kinglake residents was established some time ago, who have quietly and systematically taken ‘screen captures’ of all of Geelan’s internet sniping.

A trail of most of Geelan’s stories is still available at the Authory website, but they too are expected to be deleted as soon as Geelan reads this post.

His posts can still be seen in the public forum for the Reckon accounting software group.

Geelan represented that he was an important ABC on-air presenter, and made threats that he would use the ABC Twitter account to publicise unfavourable comments about the company’s response to his complaints about software failure.

Geelan wrote in 2015:

“Alternatively, and I have to offer you right of reply

“I’m employed part-time by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and do both off-air technical work for ABC Master Control Victoria, and some on-air things for 774ABC Melbourne (3LO); 3GV (ABC Goulburn-Murray/Shepparton/Albury/Coroa) and ABC Kinglake Ranges.

“I am now going to discuss the failures of your software on air as soon as I get my next on-air opportunity, which I will also put ot all of these statements via the ABC Twitter account.

“I will offer a rep of your company a right of reply. Can’t wait to hear the “answers.”“

For the record, Ashley Geelan has never worked and will never work for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in any capacity, including that of the cleaning staff.

One fellow operator told an Internet news group:

“Unfortunately in recent times Ashley has suffered the collapse of the Geelan empire which included the closing down of his fantastic Yahoo email group and the Australian Communications Authority raiding his house and taking all of his radio gear off him, apparently for illegally transmitting on amateur frequencies without a licence or authority and possibly on Police channels as well.  

“I don’t know if St Helena Paving is suffering as a result of this, or if Ashley has had to sell the Torana as well … Keep it up Ashley. Your keeping us all entertained with your famous and stupid bloody ways.” 

St Helena Paving was a registered business name of Ashley Stephen Geelan.

Ashley Geelan replied:

“It had to more to do with a local councillor – name [redacted] – (a corrupt copper as well who I had dirt on for car theft, bashing prisoners etc) who doesn’t like me (like many of you) so may I suggest you actually do some research and get your facts straight before you open your rather large mouths.” 

Sound familiar to 2019?

Back in 2004, Geelan was talking about his unproven allegations of corrupt police, wicked councillors, and fact checking.

Fifteen years on, it’s the same hopeless story. Only the names of his accused have changed.

Andrew Kenna was monitoring Geelan’s website in 2004:

“If you check out Ashley Geelan’s web site he says its 100% legal to steal Foxtel. I think the Police, ACA, and Foxtel would say otherwise.”

Kenna continued:

“Ashley Geelan and [redacted] certainly helped 2003 go out with a big bang (they probably did a big bang – and a big bong with each other anyway). There is one thing we should thank them for and that is our comical entertainment. These guys are the greatest joke I have come across in a
long time … Keep it up Ashley and Michael, I need the laughs. You guys are fucken dickheads.”

One internet post had the familiar theme of re-written song lyrics, and the threat that a policeman’s home would by destroyed by fire. “How about a molitof (sic) cocktail, straight through the window at 2am?”

“One day, he’ll go for a drive to find he has no brakes – who cut the lines?”

Radio operator ‘Adam’ told the Aus.Radio.Scanner news group about Ashley Geelan’s on-air behaviour: “The worst part about this is that it gives us all a bad name. Not good for our hobby.”

Another operator agreed: “Too many dickheads making it look bad for everybody else.

Now if only Ashley could go play in the traffic.”

Locals smile at how Ashley Geelan, at every opportunity, describes himself as a local hero, with details of how he saved lives and buildings in the 2009 tragedy.

One of the Kinglake Ranges, Castella & Toolangi Community Facebook Group administrators this month (15/10/2019) described it this way:

“I don’t think I’m alone but I’m so sick of the self-indulgent dribble being posted. Should Ashlee (I’m a hero just ask me) be removed from the group.”

By the way, 61 people agreed, 9 joked that they would contribute towards a hit man, and there were 8 other responses.

Interestingly, Geelan also describes himself as the hero of another fire.

This time in Whittlesea (20/08/2018).

The story became big news at Geelan’s Kinglake Ranges News blog.

”On Monday, August 20 a Whittlesea house fire started in the lounge room roof. The smoke alarm did not sound until it was too late as the tiled roof began collapsing.”

“Black acrid smoke was seen throughout Whittlesea.”

The spotlight turns to Ashley Geelan in a pathetic attempt at “journalism” where the reporter becomes the story.

“Within seconds of the smoke alarm sounding the lounge room was ablaze as the roof collapsed onto a couch. Despite Geelan’s best efforts the fire took hold within seconds and there was nothing Geelan could do.”

It turns out that the leased property was that of Geelan’s common law wife; and that Geelan had been inside the roof earlier.

”Whilst running television and radio communications cables in the roof Geelan had noticed and removed some insulation ‘pink batts’ that showed evidence of burning from being too close to low-voltage down lights that create heat in the transformers,” said the report at Geelan’s website.

“Most of the house was destroyed with only items in the bathroom and rear of the home surviving. What the fire didn’t get was soon water or soot damaged.

“As a former Country Fire Authority volunteer (Eltham 1994 – 2000) Geelan shouldn’t have gone back inside the home without building fire turn-out gear (PPE), a charged canvas 38mm fire hose, a rope trace line and breathing apparatus.

The report was supposed to have been penned by an independent third person, then mid-sentence, the Ashley Geelan story takes over as author; there’s no explanation of how the author fits in the story, and no disclaimer of the author’s conflict of interest.

“Adrenalin took over and Geelan went in anyway.

“Later Geelan was taken to hospital after suffering mild burns taking in too much carbon monoxide to my bloodstream from breathing the toxic smoke.

“Radio communications and computer equipment that Geelan used to keep police and fire on air during Black Saturday were destroyed.

“Due to asphyxiation and possible carbon monoxide poisoning Barbara Kress and Geelan were taken to the Northern Hospital for oxygen and observation, before detectives took all of our clothes – yes all – for forensic testing.

“The clothes were returned, no evidence of arson was found and our clothes were returned last Thursday, September 27. No charges were laid.

“Geelan lost nothing on Black Saturday, but helped others.

‘This reporter always has – and always will – put people’s safety and well-being before filing reports. It was rather disappointing to see so many capable people standing around filming on phones and posting to face(less)book rather than helping out. I’m a reporter and photographer, but if I see someone who requires first aid or needs assistance, then fuck the camera, news reporting and taking photos of it, administer first aid and help first. Report later.”

Geelan’s efforts were never reported to any authority with the recommendation of a hero’s medallion for valour.

However, Ashley Geelan did use the incident to unsuccessfully attempt to persuade La Trobe University authorities to give the 40-year-old student extra time for his overdue assignments.

Is Geelan a hero? Not in this life time.

Is Geelan a professional victim? Indeed.

Is Geelan a pathological liar? Absolutely.

Is Geelan responsible for burning down the former Whittlesea home of his common law wife? It’s very possible.

In his usual coward punch mode, Geelan withdrew his blog report and ‘Geelan Media’ social media posts, as soon as he was challenged.

“He rang me and said this is what he’s going to do and he doesn’t care who else it affects. But with a lot of f words inserted,” the businessman said at the time.

“Because of his false statements, he was contacted by what he believed was his reliable source who told him to remove the post.

“He is just a loose cannon and as he said to me he doesn’t care who he hurts with what he posts. Very careless and immature I think and to be allowed to do that is frightening.”

Geelan’s common reply to people who complain is “stiff shit”.

This is contrary to the code of ethics of his union, the Media Entertainment Arts Alliance (MEAA).

Complaints about Geelan’s behaviour have been lodged with the MEAA.

The MEAA has strict codes of behaviour on how real journalists should conduct themselves with prudence and probity.

Lies and cowardice.

Ashley Geelan is a gutless turd and Australia’s biggest coward.