By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Former Casey mayor Brian Oates has told of being offered but not accepting “help” by John Woodman’s ALP lobbyist Phil Staindl ahead of the 2016 City of Casey election.
Mr Oates had been listed with four other candidates as targets for donations from Mr Woodman on an email by Mr Staindl, which has been since tabled at an IBAC Operation Sandon inquiry.
“Out of the blue”, Mr Staindl called in a “friendly” tone in late 2016, Mr Oates told Star News.
He said “some Labor people who want to assist some Labor candidates – would you be interested in a donation to your campaign fund?”, Mr Oates said.
Mr Oates, an ALP member, replied: “Yes but I don’t want to be in someone’s debt. I’m not going to do what they want me to do on council.”
He recalls Mr Staindl saying “That would never happen” and that he’d get back to Mr Oates.
Mr Staindl didn’t get back in contact and no money was received, Mr Oates said.
“I didn’t think any more about it. I certainly haven’t had any unexpected deposits in my bank account.”
There were no discussions about planning issues or mention of Mr Woodman and his development projects – a subject being investigated by IBAC in relation to alleged corruption by Casey councillors.
Mr Oates said he hadn’t heard from Mr Staindl for about 10 years before the call.
“We’re both on the same political side and we got on pretty well actually.”
He’s surprised he was targeted given that Mr Woodman’s alleged councillor allies “hated me”.
“They would have all said don’t have a bar of him because I was the biggest thorn in their side.”
In his email to Mr Woodman’s planning consultant Megan Schutz on 27 September 2016, Mr Staindl writes: “The candidates for support and their details are as follows”.
He listed Mr Oates, Tim Jackson, who served on the council from 2016 until he resigned days before the council was sacked in February, Faisal Najibi, Sepalkumar Patel and Kusani Mendis.
The candidates’ bank account details were listed, with amounts of up to “$2K” apparently assigned to each candidate.
Mr Oates doesn’t know how Mr Staindl acquired his bank details other than through the VEC or the ALP – where his membership fees are direct debited.
Either way, it seemed to be a gross breach of privacy, he said.
“I can’t think I’d be giving him my bank account details.”
At a 3 March IBAC hearing, Ms Schutz identified one of the donation targets Mr Patel as a member of Save Cranbourne West Residents Action Group. He was apparently assigned $1000 on the list.
Mr Patel declared the gift from Mr Woodman’s company Watsons on his 2016 donation returns.
On 2 March, Ms Schutz told the hearing that she had no memory of the email list.
She assumed Mr Woodman was “working out who the candidates are and then ensuring that he’s going to have a council that supports the Cranbourne West rezoning”.
“I’m assuming Phil Staindl is sending me the names of candidates which John Woodman is going to donate to.
“I would assume that these donations were about friendly candidates and it being helpful to have friendly candidates and to do negotiations in terms of preferencing.
“I can see now when I look at what was going on that he was working out a position where he would have council support by influencing candidates.”
Former councilors Gary Rowe, Susan Serey, Geoff Ablett and Amanada Stapledon had received donations from Mr Woodman for their state election campaigns, Ms Schutz said.
As earlier heard at IBAC, councillors were rated by Mr Woodman’s associates as either “friendly”, opponents or unknown in their attitude towards Amendment C219.
The amendment was proposed to rezone a large tract of industrial land in Cranbourne West to residential use – a push that was supported by Mr Woodman and developer Leighton.
It was backed by Casey Council but ultimately deferred by Planning Minister Richard Wynne.
Mr Woodman had spent nearly $100,000 bankrolling campaigns for a bloc of at least nine candidates with 14 “supporting” candidates in 2016.
A campaign ‘budget’ document tabled lists initials of elected councillors Sam Aziz, Amanda Stapledon, Geoff Ablett, Wayne Smith and Damien Rosario, as well as unsuccessful candidates Rob Ward, Mick Morland and Louise Berkelmans.
Mr Woodman implicitly expected the support of those candidates for his interests, his lobbyist Lorraine Wreford told the Operation Sandon inquiry.
“But he was very explicit in saying that he didn’t want to directly fund it because he didn’t want to be linked to other councillors, firstly, and, secondly, he didn’t even want them to know where the funds were coming from.”
Mr Oates, who ran an unsuccessful election campaign on a “shoestring” budget in 2016, said the $100,000 campaign fund could be the difference between candidates “winning” and “losing”.
“To deliver (pamphlets) to a whole postcode would cost about $10,000 each.”
