Salisbury Mayor Gillian Aldridge accepted corporate box tickets to Port Adelaide match as guest of property developer

SALISBURY Mayor Gillian Aldridge accepted free football tickets from a property developer who later donated $2500 towards her successful re-election campaign.

Salisbury Mayor Gillian Aldridge. Picture: Calum Robertson

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SALISBURY Mayor Gillian Aldridge attended an AFL match as a guest of a property developer who later donated $2500 towards her successful re-election campaign.

The council’s publicly available gifts and benefits register shows that Ms Aldridge declared that she had accepted two corporate box tickets to an April 2014 match donated by Hot Property Group’s business development manager Tony Pullino.

Prospect-based Hot Property Group is behind the $45 million Mawson Lakes Central Plaza redevelopment, construction of which started in late 2015 and is nearing completion. The company was among a number of developers who donated to Ms Aldridge’s election campaign ahead of the November 2014 council elections.

Ms Aldridge said she used the attendance at the Port Adelaide versus Geelong match as an opportunity to network, promote the “benefits of the City of Salisbury” and to discus “men’s health in the north”.

She said at “no point” during the evening did she discuss with Mr Pullino or other guests the Mawson Lakes development.

“All enquiries relating to developments are referred to our planning and development staff,” she said in an emailed response to questions.

Ms Aldridge said her attendance at the football match had also been recorded in the council agenda of May 26, 2014. The Mawson Lakes development was approved by the state’s development assessment commission.

Ms Aldridge said in 2015 that she’d asked developers to support her campaign and that she had no “personal financial gain” from any development. “The developers that I asked to support me, the majority of them grew up in this city so they are passionate about this city, they love it and they want to see it grow,” she said.