By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Casey councillor Sam Aziz threatened to reverse the council’s support for Cranbourne West intersection works unless a property developer paid him “hundreds of thousands of dollars”, an IBAC inquiry heard.
Developer John Woodman confirmed the Operation Sandon inquiry on 26 November that his lobbyist Lorraine Wreford was delivered the ultimatum by Cr Aziz in relation to the H3 intersection in November 2018.
The hearing was told Cr Aziz proposed selling his house in Barak Avenue, Berwick to Mr Woodman for $750,000.
Cr Aziz would then live in the house rent-free for two years, then buy it back for a “nominal” price.
Mr Woodman told the inquiry that he didn’t agree with Cr Aziz’s “suggestion”.
However, he later found “a contract where he could actually complete work on behalf of a project and be paid the sort of money that the councillor had outlined was his desire”.
The job in question was a $25,000-a-month Smart Cities consultancy for a Little River development.
“Mr Aziz was putting the bite on you for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you then explored various ways of granting his wish,” Counsel assisting IBAC, Michael Tovey, said to Mr Woodman.
“Some things didn’t come to fruition until you gave him the $600,000 job for which there was a sham contract.”
Mr Woodman replied: “Sir, correct, except for the word “sham“. It was not a sham contract.”
A tapped phone call in March 2019 revealed Mr Woodman discussing with his assistant Jolene Rome about scanning the contract, emailing it and deleting it.
He agreed with Mr Tovey’s assertion that he didn’t want an electronic copy because the document was backdated to December 2018.
Mr Tovey said the contract had otherwise been due to expire in September 2020, on the eve of the next council elections.
“You and Ms Wreford discussed the fact that Mr Aziz thought he was going to get a job with you after the so-called agreement expired and you and she basically laughed about it and what you indicated was that was never going to happen,” Mr Tovey told Mr Woodman at the hearing.
Mr Woodman said he initially didn’t take Cr Aziz’s approaches for work seriously but “my attitude towards his abilities did change”.
However he recently terminated the contract after learning Cr Aziz’s undertaking of enrolling in a Smart Cities-related PhD “didn’t stand the test of scrutiny”.
Mr Woodman told the inquiry that at one stage he and Ms Wreford had “remonstrated” and been “upset” that Cr Aziz had not declared a conflict of interest on planning matters related to Mr Woodman.
From the outset of the hearings, IBAC has alleged that Mr Woodman paid Cr Aziz about $900,000.
