At the last minute on Friday 14 March the day before the Queensland local government elections, in a desperate bid to harm the chances of Ron Owen a candidate for the Integrity Gympie team contesting the election for Mayor of the Greater Gympie Council, the Gympie Times newspaper fabricated a story based on a fraudulently altered screenshot of a Google search. The story claimed that Owen had purposefully connected his campaign web-site to community group web-sites and identities so as to improperly claim their support for his campaign.

The launch of the bid of group Integrity Gympie to win control of the Gympie Council chamber is to be held at the Gympie Bowls Club at 2.00PM on Saturday 2 February 2008. Integrity Gympie was formed by independent community activists together with three currently serving councillors who were concerned that the current Gympie Regional Council led by Mayor Mick Vernados favours the interests of developers at the expense of their own constituents.