[1] Gardiner was appointed mayor by the Minister for Local Government, Eric Spooner, which was due to the deadlocked nature of the council, which was split equally between Labor and independents, and the council up until then had been unable to settle on a candidate for mayor.
[4] Gardiner continued to serve on Redfern council until his defeat at the December 1941 elections.
In August 1935, Gardiner was elected to the No.2 Constituency of the Sydney County Council and faced an unsuccessful legal challenge from his main conservative opponent, who disputed the results.
[7] Defeated as a county councillor in 1945, Gardiner was elected in September 1947 to fill a vacancy in the council caused by the retirement of Stanley Parry.
[9][10] From 1960 to 1974 he was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, during which time he was associated with the Independent Labor Group.