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‘Coaching’ claim By Cam Lucadou-Wells A Casey councillor and a planning lawyer at the centre of IBAC investigations have both denied claims of ‘coaching in real time’ in key Casey Council votes allegedly benefitting developer John Woodman’s property interests. However, at Wednesday’s IBAC hearing consultant, Megan Schutz, a qualified lawyer, admitted that she went too far in lobbying for Mr Woodman’s interests in Casey. Councillor Geoff Ablett has previously been accused of continuing to promote Mr Woodman behind the scenes, despite declaring a conflict of interest and sitting out on those decisions since 2015, IBAC was told. The hearings heard he had texted messages to Cr Sam Aziz while excused from a meeting, in 2018. At Wednesday’s hearing, Ms Schutz said she shouldn’t have coached Cr Sam Aziz with regular text messages during a council debate on the H3 intersection in Hall Road, Cranbourne West on 16 October 2018. As she sat at home watching the live-stream of the meeting, she offered tactics such as “you need to read the SCWRAG letter” and “don’t take Rowe’s bait about Wolfdene”. Ms Schutz told IBAC that she’d helped refine the mentioned letter from the Save Cranbourne West Residents Action Group (SCWRAG), a group she’d helped to set up with interested locals. It was a “commercial interest dressed up in a community argument”, she said. At one point during the vote, Ms Schutz texts that Cr Aziz’s arguments are “muddied”, and to stress that the community’s lives were being put at risk. “On reflection I wouldn’t do this again,” she told the IBAC hearing on 4 December. “I wouldn’t send text messages again. I’d provide my briefing note and that would be the end of it. “I think what I did was advocate too hard for a position but I did not have any influence.” Cr Ablett had first declared the conflict of interest at Casey Council in 2015. From then on, he removed himself on voting planning
Then-Casey mayor Geoff Ablett, centre, fronts the Commit to Casey campaign ahead of the 2018 state election. 177187 matters involving Mr Woodman. But since then, Cr Ablett allegedly strategised with a ‘residents action group’ as well as coached councillor Sam Aziz during a council vote on a Woodman-related planning issue, the inquiry heard. According to notes from a meeting with Save Cranbourne West Residents Action Group in June 2018, Cr Ablett advised on how to put the pressure on Labor state election candidate Pauline Richards. “In his view the best way to tackle this was to put the heavies on Pauline Richards,” group leaders Ray and Valerie Walker stated. At the IBAC hearing, Cr Ablett denied the claim. “I wasn’t going to put the heavies on Pauline Richards or anyone.” At the time, Mr Woodman was seeking the
Amendment C219 rezoning of industrial land to residential in Cranbourne West on behalf of developer Leighton. The residents group - which IBAC alleges received $198,000 from Mr Woodman - and Casey Council backed the rezoning. But it had yet to be approved by Planning Minister Richard Wynne. Cr Ablett denied that he advised the group to request Ms Richards to directly speak to Mr Wynne, and to pledge support for the coming election “if she can get this signed off”. He also denied claims in the group notes that he advised “we will put together a massive campaign against Labour (sic) - and with Cranbourne being a 2% marginal seat, we will see it returned to the Liberals.” “We did have a talk about the area and I did say ‘Why don’t see where it sits with Pauline,’
Picture: GARY SISSONS
but not to lobby ministers and have campaigns for Pauline Richards,” Cr Ablett told IBAC. Supportive of the rezoning, he said that he didn’t realise at the time there was a conflict of interest in “just talking about it”. When asked repeatedly if he was involved in a strategy to get rezoning approval from Mr Wynne despite being conflicted, Cr Ablett said he didn’t speak to the minister. Counsel assisting IBAC, Michael Tovey, several times implored Cr Ablett to “listen to the question”. “Look, Mr Ablett, you are a champion at not answering questions,” Mr Tovey said. Cr Ablett said he didn’t think such a strategy came from Mr Woodman or his planning consultant Megan Schutz. More from the IBAC hearings on pages 4, 5 and 7
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