By Cam Lucadou-Wells
An ALP life member and lobbyist received a $500,000 success fee from a developer after 100 hectares of Cranbourne South farmland was rezoned for housing, an IBAC inquiry heard
Philip Staindl’s clients included developer John Woodman who is under investigation by IBAC over alleged corrupt dealings with Casey councillors.
Mr Staindl was first hired by Mr Woodman’s firm Watsons to lobby for the rezoning of Brompton Lodge in Casey’s Green Wedge.
In 2012, Mr Staindl and business partner Geoff Leigh shared a $1 million success fee.
Mr Staindl said his $500,000 was equivalent to a $6000 a month retainer over six years, he told IBAC.
Such success fees were later banned in 2014, but he later learnt that Mr Woodman still thought the success-fee arrangement held.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Michael Tovey, asked about the pair’s discussion in March 2019 about Mr Staindl’s success fee being held by lawyers Maddocks.
Mr Staindl remembered a discussion with Mr Woodman in which he asked if the success fee was “still there”.
“My stomach sank. I thought I’ve got to end that.
“I reached a point in which I knew I couldn’t accept a success fee.”
By that time, Mr Staindl was aware of The Age’s reports on allegedly corrupt dealings between developers and Casey councillors.
In November 2018, he realised their quest for rezoning Cranbourne West industrial land for housing became “politically impossible” on the eve of a state election.
Planning Minister Richard Wynne deferred the matter – also known as Amendment C219.
At that stage, Mr Woodman’s entities had allegedly donated heavily to the State Government ahead of the election.
He was a platinum member of the ALP’s corporate fundraising arm Progressive Business – the highest level of membership worth about $90,000, the inquiry heard.
It provided him and his associates’ access to group “workshops” with Government ministers as well as “forums” which were like “speed-dating” with multiple ministers.
A former ALP election candidate, Mr Staindl stepped down as PB president and director in 2010 and is no longer a member, he told IBAC.
He agreed he’d advised Mr Woodman to become a PB member.
“But I didn’t know the quantum he paid.”
Mr Staindl said political fundraising was a “necessary evil”. Donors were provided an opportunity to “get in a room to put their case”.
PB was an opportunity to meet with senior politicians, but “certainly not a precursor to delivering an outcome”.
Since 2018, the State Government limited any entity’s donations to $1000 a year due to the “potential conflicts”, Mr Staindl said.
“So that was the last of the halcyon fundraising years?” Mr Tovey said.
“It may go down in history as that, yes,” Mr Staindl said.
He said he was aware of a meeting between Mr Woodman’s associates and then-Roads Minister Luke Donnellan about transport issues that “didn’t end at all well”.
He said meetings were sought with Treasurer Tim Pallas to talk broadly about development “stimulating housing activity”.
Under the state’s lobbyist code-of-conduct, lobbyists are required to act “transparently”.
Mr Staindl said lobbyists should be transparent with government officers, It would be a “broad reaching definition” to extend it to citizens knowing what was going on between government and lobbyists.
IBAC Commissioner Robert Redlich said that would mean there’s nothing in the code requiring transparency with the Victorian public.
