By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A former Labor MP who supported developer John Woodman’s push to rezone Cranbourne West land told an IBAC inquiry she was not friends with him.
Judith Graley, the former MP for Narre Warren South, says she never felt any pressure from Mr Woodman about his planning matters but acted on behalf of “the community”.
At the time, she was unaware that the active community group Save Cranbourne West Residents Action Group (SCWRAG) was sponsored by Woodman, she told the inquiry.
In 2018, she approached Planning Minister Richard Wynne or his office staff three times on the rezoning matter – Amendment C219.
Ms Graley recalled directly mentioning the issue to Mr Wynne on their way into the Parliament chamber in March 2018.
Ms Graley was couched as Mr Woodman and his associates’ last hope in swaying the State Government to rezone the land and “our good friend in the SE (South East)”.
“Judith is into this big time,” lobbyist Philip Staindl wrote to Mr Woodman in mid-2018.
In mid 2018, Mr Woodman writes: “Phil, I would say we would need a miracle.
“Only JG can deliver.
“Fingers crossed if JG feels the need to throw in the school site. Please advise to do so. Thanks.”
Ms Graley told the inquiry it was “a very strange comment to make”.
She denied she was “into it big time”.
In an email, Mr Staindl refers to Ms Graley as “our good friend in the SE (south-east)” who was speaking with a senior staff member from Mr Wynne’s office.
Ms Graley “proceeded to spell out in a manner that ensured there was absolutely no chance of misunderstanding that to do anything other than rezone the land would be politically disastrous and also against the overwhelming view of the local residents,” Mr Staindl writes.
“She went so far as to predict it will be the difference between winning and losing the seat of Cranbourne.”
Ms Graley disagreed with counsel assisting IBAC, Michael Tovey, that she was “enmeshed” with Mr Woodman.
She said Mr Woodman and Mr Staindl tended to “over-blow and overexaggerate things”.
“I certainly don’t see myself in the way that … language may paint me.
“I certainly never, never detoured from the fact that I was acting in good faith and on behalf of the community.”
She said she never thought Mr Staindl or Mr Woodman were seeking to use her in some way.
“I was never that influential.”
In 2015, Ms Graley was in monthly contact with Woodman’s lobbyist Mr Staindl in 2015. She says they spoke about C219 as well as generally on politics, sport and travel.
Ms Graley said Mr Staindl and she “weren’t friends” nor working hand in hand on C219. “He kept me informed”.
She didn’t understand she was being “cultivated” as part of Mr Woodman’s “sphere of influence” at the time.
Nor did she regard Mr Woodman as a friend.
She caught up for lunch with Mr Woodman and Mr Staindl “three times at most” over 12 years. There were occasional catch-ups over cups of tea in cafes.
“The fact was that we really did enjoy catching up with each other because we had common interests and we enjoyed having a laugh and a chat with each other.”
Mr Woodman told the inquiry in 2019 he’d been funding Ms Graley’s political campaigning but denied she lobbied for the rezoning out of a “sense of obligation” to him.
Ms Graley had been a “friend” going back to her time as a Mornington Peninsula Shire councillor, one of the “main instigators” of Mr Woodman’s Martha Cove project, he said.
And she had the “ability to speak directly to the Minister for Planning”.
Ms Graley told the inquiry that she didn’t have contact with Mr Woodman during her six years on Mornington Peninsula council, including a year as mayor.
She just “saw him” “across the table” at council meetings when he was a planning-permit applicant in 2004-’05.
In an email in 2015, Mr Woodman named Ms Graley as part of the “Fab Four”, the inquiry heard.
He wrote to Mr Staindl about the need to conduct a C219 briefing with the ‘Fab Four’ including then-Cranbourne MP Jude Perera, former shadow planning minister Brian Tee and Keysborough MP Martin Pakula.
A year earlier, Ms Graley, Mr Pakula and Mr Perera’s state election campaigns shared a $30,000 donation from a joint fundraiser staged by Mr Woodman at Crown Casino.
“I never spoke to Mr Pakula about this issue,” Ms Graley told IBAC on 25 November.
“If I got $10,000 for that it was probably at the larger end of donations that I ever received.
“But, you know, I didn’t organise that.”
