By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Cranbourne MP Pauline Richards has told an IBAC hearing that she regretted a meeting with developer John Woodman days after he offered $20,000 to her 2018 election campaign.
IBAC surveillance officers reported observing and photographing a meeting between Mr Woodman, his lobbyist Philip Staindl and ALP candidate Ms Richards at the Sofitel Melbourne on 23 October 2018.
According to IBAC officers, the Amendment C219 industrial land supply review and the H3 intersection were discussed.
Mr Woodman had commercial interests in both issues, including a $2 million success fee for C219, IBAC has heard.
Counsel assisting IBAC, Michael Tovey said Ms Richards made noises that were “at least encouraging” of her support during the “quite extensive” 75-minute briefing.
“I remember giving him the sense that it wasn’t my role as a candidate,” Ms Richards told the inquiry.
“So I smiled and must have been more agreeable than I had realised.”
During the campaign, she had become inclined to “smile and nod agreeably at all people as part of the natural way of encouraging people to vote for me”.
In a tapped phone call afterwards, Mr Woodman reports to land-owner Leightons’ consultant Tom Kennessey that Ms Richards was “totally on board”.
“I’m very confident that she’s going to deliver.
“I’m very comfortable that she’s going to go ‘all the way, Jose’ to make that happen.”
He also reported that Ms Richards was “very appreciative” of Mr Woodman’s “generous offer to her” – presumably an offer days earlier of $20,000 to her election campaign.
Later the Woodman camp are talking about an expectation that Ms Richards would be “sitting in front of” Planning Minister Richard Wynne.
After the Sofitel meeting, Mr Woodman authorises $20,000 to be paid – $10,000 to Ms Richards’ campaign, and $5000 each to Ferntree Gully and Ringwood campaigns.
“Surely you would agree in retrospect that the look of all that is very, very bad?” Mr Tovey asked Ms Richards.
“In hindsight I wished I hadn’t attended the meeting,” Ms Richards said.
“I wish I had been clearer in my intention not to make representations on his behalf.
“And in hindsight I accept that I wish I had been clearer in perhaps flattening his expectations of me.”
Ms Richards said she’d agreed to Woodman lobbyist and ALP life member Mr Staindl’s invitation to meet for a “coffee” at the Sofitel – after being put under pressure by his constant phone calls.
At the time, she didn’t see the $20,000 as depending on how she responded to Mr Woodman’s pitch.
Ms Richards told IBAC she requested $10,000 go to other seats due to her “discomfort” with the talks. She said she was “part rejecting” the donation.
“I felt I was sending a message that I was not interested in the campaign receiving such a large amount and that I felt I wanted him to understand that it ought go somewhere else.
“That I wanted him to take the pressure off and that I wouldn’t submit.”
A few days before the meeting, Planning Minister Richard Wynne had announced deferring the C219 decision to undertake an industrial land supply review.
She said she twice declined a letter handed to her by Mr Woodman, which he requested to be passed on to Planning Minister Wynne.
She said she told them the letter should be handed to Cranbourne’s retiring MP Jude Perera.
“I twice pushed with my hand away and said, ‘This is not my part of the ship.’”
On the third occasion, she conceded she may have taken the letter but “never submitted it”.
Ms Richards told IBAC she frequently used the phrase “not my part of the ship” to deflect any talk of planning issues.
She had kept in mind a “very forceful and explicit instruction” by someone from Mr Wynne’s office in early 2018 that candidates should stay away from planning issues.
By 2019, the ALP regarded Mr Woodman as “personae non grata” due to corruption allegations involving Casey councillors and him.
Mr Staindl reports after a “cuppa” with Ms Richards in April 2019 that she is “eternally grateful” for Mr Woodman’s election support but can’t raise his matters with Mr Wynne’s office.
“I can’t imagine that I would be saying I’m eternally grateful to John Woodman,” she told the inquiry.
“I may have said to Mr Staindl that I was grateful to him for his support, but I wouldn’t imagine that I would be wishing Mr Woodman any good wishes.”
