In reaction to the anti-corruption watchdog’s critical assessment on the current planning system, Premier Daniel Andrews has stated that local councils should play a less role in “significant planning decisions.”
Today’s Operation Sandon report from Victoria’s Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) laid out “corruption vulnerabilities” in the state’s and local governments’ planning decision-making processes.
Following a five-year inquiry into Casey Council, it was discovered that developer John Woodman had given previous council members $1.2 million in exchange for their support of his planning plans.
Sam Aziz and Geoff Ablett, two former council members, received cash payments in suitcases and shopping bags during those transactions.
The report stated that all council members elected at the time “exhibited and tolerated behavior that did not meet the standards required of them,” even while IBAC determined those two council members personally profited in exchange for support of Woodman’s interests.
Some council members, according to him, “made a deliberate departure from those standards, while other council members showed a poor understanding of their duties as elected officials,” he said.
“The planning amendments we looked at as part of this operation reached the desks of decision-makers in local and state government, without having strategic reasons for their implementation,” he said.
In April 2018, Aziz and Woodman were spotted together.
Another security photo obtained by IBAC from April 2018 shows Aziz and Woodman together. (IBAC)
IBAC has claimed that the inquiry has shown how, in the absence of adequate restrictions, lobbyists can target ministers, members of parliament, councillors, ministerial advisers, and electorate officials.
To encourage transparency in planning choices, strengthen contribution and lobbying rules, and increase the responsibility of ministerial advisers, the panel has presented 34 suggestions to the state government.
It has suggested setting up a “Implementation Inter-departmental Taskforce” within the government to carry out the modifications.
In a statement issued this morning, Andrews stated that his administration thought “the role of local councils in significant planning decisions should be reduced.”
The statement goes on to say, “We will have more to say on this matter.”
Because of what happened in the City of Casey, which was wholly unacceptable, the council was dismissed by the government in 2020.The report makes it abundantly evident that more work has to be done.
“The government will give each of the report’s 34 recommendations due consideration and respond in due course.”
IBAC lacks the authority to prosecute anyone for whatever misconduct it identifies.
Farrow claimed that IBAC will provide the Office of Public Prosecutions with all of its evidence for review, but that it had not yet done so.
Andrews admitted to the inquiry that he had lunch with Woodman in 2017 after the developer placed a $10,000 bid at a charity event for the two of them to enjoy a meal.
According to Andrews, neither Woodman nor his colleagues brought up planning concerns with him during the lunch.
IBAC did not uncover anything bad about the prime minister.
Today in the late afternoon, Andrews will discuss the IBAC report in public.
45 days of public hearings were held in 2019 as part of the IBAC investigation, which started in 2018.
The City of Casey council members were subsequently fired by the Victorian government in February 2020.
