A letter to Kiama branch members, signed by Mr Kolomeitz and dated August 26, 2015, was distributed to South Coast media outlets on Friday. 

“In recent months, an aggressively orchestrated, highly factionalised and quite personal campaign has been waged against me by a handful of senior members, and a relatively new member of the party, in the south seat of Gilmore,” Mr Kolomeitz wrote. 

“The vitriol and deviousness I have encountered is unlike anything I have seen in my many years in Labor. It replicates the sense of entitlement and born to rule attributed to many Liberal Party Members of Parliament, the removal of whom should be the focus of our energy.”

Mr Kolomeitz wrote that a destabilising and divisive influence had entered the local party ranks and that his presidency of the Gilmore federal electoral council has been made untenable.

Mr Kolomeitz, who is now chief executive officer and state secretary of the NSW branch of the RSL, confirmed he was the author of the letter but said he was disappointed it had been leaked and hoped it would not damage Fiona Phillips’ campaign for the seat of Gilmore. 

Mr Kolomeitz did not contest the Gilmore preselection.

“I hope it doesn’t damage anyone’s campaign,” he said.

Denying there was any campaign against Mr Kolomeitz, local Labor figure Michelle Miran dismissed the content of the leaked letter as “sour grapes from an ex-candidate”.

On June 16 last year, in an email to the South Coast Register and senior local Labor officials, Ms Miran described Mr Kolomeitz as a minor party official “with an inflated sense of grandeur”. She denied there had been a campaign against him.