Monash Council to return $2.6m to more than 26,000 motorists

Monash Council will pay back $2.6 million to motorists who had their fines illegally reviewed during a 10-year period.

Monash Council parking inspectors dish out a fine on Kingsway, Glen Waverley. Picture: Nathan Dyer

Monash Council will pay back $2.6 million to motorists who had their fines illegally reviewed during a 10-year period.

Monash was among several councils using parking contractor Tenix, with more than 26,000 letters sent to people affected between July 1, 2006, and November 15 2016.

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A council statement said it applied to drivers who sought a review of their fine under the Infringements Act 2006 but did not have their fine withdrawn.

Tenix had carried out this process for more than 20 years on behalf of council, however the introduction of the Act in 2006 altered its ability to do that and instead should have been done by council.

The council now believes that the introduction of the Act meant the final decision of the review should not have been outsourced and that council rather than its contractor should have undertaken the review.

This now means that even though fines were issued correctly some of the reviews were consequently not valid.

Monash Mayor Shane McCluskey blamed the problem on a flaw in the process that needed government intervention to fix and that council now had “a moral and legal obligation to refund the fines”.

“This has been a complex and challenging issue on a number of fronts,” he said.

“We believed we were following the right process when our contractor undertook the reviews and the fines were paid.

“However, after considerable investigation we have now formed the view that those fines were paid under a flawed process not of our making.”

The council has written to the government asking it to retrospectively amend the legislation, but this had been refused.

The funds will come from council savings and no charges special charges will be introduced to pay for the refunds.

People who believe they may have been affected by fines from Monash can phone [phone], visit council offices or email [e-mail]