By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Casey councillor Geoff Ablett and a property developer have spoken about “nailing” the council’s former chief executive Mike Tyler in an intercepted phone call, an IBAC anti-corruption hearing has heard.
The developer John Woodman, admitted during the Operation Sandon inquiry, that he had asked Cr Ablett to consider whether Mr Tyler’s “time was up” as CEO for 27 years.
“I’m going to say it again mate, if it hadn’t have been for you,” Mr Woodman told Cr Ablett in the tapped call on 11 November 2018.
“If it had of been up to Amanda, maybe Sam would have done it, but if it hadn’t been for you we would have been still putting up with Mike Tyler and his antics.”
Cr Ablett told Mr Woodman that before the CEO’s removal, he gathered information from previous officers, experts and councils “who hated Mike Tyler’s guts”.
“Every time he moved left or right or forward or back I had him covered and then eventually I started gathering the information.
“After six weeks we had him in the corner and then I f***ing nailed him.”
At the IBAC inquiry, Mr Woodman said he’d been against Mr Tyler for obstructing Amendment C219 rezoning of Cranbourne West land.
He also admitted telling Cr Ablett of a council officer who was not conducting himself in a “fair and balanced way”. The officer was subsequently purged from their job, the hearing was told.
During a later tapped phone call with his consultant Megan Schutz, Mr Woodman railed against Mr Tyler’s successor Glenn Patterson:
“Yep, I don’t know when this f***wit is going to work out that, like, um, he’s only got the job because of us,” Mr Woodman said.
Mr Patterson should “shape up or f*** off”, he said.
At the inquiry, Mr Woodman said his “big-noting” about being involved in Mr Patterson getting the job was a “total incorrect statement”.
“I stand to be corrected. I don’t think that it was my instigation that Mr Tyler was moved on, sir.”
Commissioner Robert Redlich asked about allegations of Mr Woodman bullying Casey Council staff in 2018.
The inquiry also heard one of Cr Ablett’s reasons for “moving on” the former CEO was his edict to stop councilors visiting council officers at their work spaces.
Cr Ablett wanted to “have more of a friendly working relationship with those council officers”, Mr Woodman said.
