Mr Eldridge told the court that one of the reasons he was late to submit the form was because he could not walk around the council workplace without a security guard and also faced "extremely difficult" challenges and major projects.

Mr Eldridge is suing the council for more than $1 million over claims he was unfairly dismissed in 2017.

During Wednesday's hearing at Wagga courthouse senior counsel for the council's defence, Robert Goot, questioned Mr Eldridge about emails sent to him by staff in 2016 as reminders to submit an annual pecuniary interest return, which was a statutory requirement under the Local Government Act.

Mr Goot asked Mr Eldridge to explain why, as he told the court, his "extremely difficult" working environment prevented him from sitting down with his wife Barbara and business staff to take stock of his pecuniary interests.

"My family was under siege, we were getting death threats ... we were transitioning the whole of council through organisational restructure, I had a mayor who wouldn't support me at all; he was doing what he could out in the community to defame me," Mr Eldridge said.

"I had staff that were disgruntled, I had a matter to do with the animal welfare shelter ... where I had 100,000 complaints come to me, I had allegations of fraud at Gregadoo tip and other places, I had RiFL, which was a $20 million project, I had infrastructure out at the airport going on and I had three directors down.

"It was a very difficult time for me. I couldn't even go anywhere without a security guard in council at that time. In hindsight it might be plausible to say 'you didn't prioritise' but I did the best I could with the human constraints I had."

Mr Goot responded "clearly your best wasn't good enough".

"I accept that," Mr Eldridge said, and he went on to accept that council "staff were good and they reminded me" about the need to submit the interests form.

Mr Eldridge went on to state that the councillors themselves were "an absolute shemozzle" as half of them did not support him and one was under code of conduct investigation "for being a racist".

Mr Goot responded "that was terrible, you had to work for your 400 grand" before withdrawing the remark due to an objection from Mr Eldridge's senior counsel, John Fernon.

In other news

Wednesday was Mr Eldridge's third consecutive day in the witness box, with Justice Andrew Bell and Mr Goot repeatedly asking him to speak louder and to remove his hand from his mouth when answering questions.

Mr Eldridge denied Mr Goot's suggestion that he "didn't care" about his interests form as he "farmed it off" to his wife due to it being an accepted fact she filled in the details.

Mr Eldridge also denied Mr Goot's allegation that he "knowingly misled" councillors by approving a business paper for the September 2016 council meeting that stated all designated staff had submitted their pecuniary interest forms when he had yet to hand in his own form as general manager.

"I believed it had been taken care of at the time," Mr Eldridge said.

The Eldridge case so far

One of the council's stated reasons for dismissing Mr Eldridge without notice or further payment was a claim that he engaged in paid work outside of the council.

Mr Eldridge agreed that he gave a "face-to-face briefing" on March 23, 2016 to an Aboriginal corporation at Narooma that had, according to its documents, paid him $15,000 of a total $25,000 "management fee" as a "project manager" for a new medical clinic.

Mr Eldridge also accepted that his council diary recorded him as being "out of the office" for the entire day but claimed he had also performed work for the council at nearby Bega, though he was unable to give any details while in the witness box.

Mr Goot told the court he would finish questioning Mr Eldridge on Thursday.

Both sides are due to give their final addresses on Friday.

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