Hume City Council begins refunding motorists after parking fine review

Thousands of motorists in Melbourne’s north will have their parking fines refunded after a Victorian Ombudsman’s investigation.

Hume Council has begun refunding motorists hit with parking fines after a Victorian Ombudsman’s report.

Thousands of motorists in Melbourne’s north will be refunded for their parking fines after a Victorian Ombudsman’s investigation.

Hume City Council has committed to providing a refund to motorists who unsuccessfully appealed a parking infringement between July 1, 2006 and December 31, 2016 where it is established that a council officer did not make a decision on the appeal.

The council has acknowledged it has used contractors in the past to support its infringement review process.

In February 2020, the Ombudsman Deborah Glass found that three local councils used a private contractor to decide parking fine reviews in a way that appeared to be contrary to law.

She found that over a period of about 10 years, the councils allowed the contractor to decide many of their reviews, either by letting it make decisions or by “rubberstamping” its recommendations.

The Ombudsman’s initial report resulted in Port Phillip, Stonnington and Glen Eira councils setting up refund schemes for more than 204,000 fines worth about $20m.

Since then seven more organisations – City of Greater Geelong, Mildura Rural City Council, Bass Coast Shire Council, Parks Victoria, Frankston City Council, Monash University and Hume City Council – have agreed to refund fines.

Hume City Council acting corporate services director Fadi Srour said all eligible motorists were sent notification from the council in the mail from late April onwards, with refunds immediately redeemable at Australia Post for 12 months from the time of issue.

To date, the council has sent out 15,876 notifications to motorists with $404,943.55 redeemed so far.

Ratepayers Victoria president Dean Hurlston said the group was glad the Ombudsman investigated the issue following Ratepayers Victoria’s claims that councils tried to cover it up for years.

He said the episode showed councils were “greedy”.

“When they make a mistake of outsourcing a function they must perform at law, they can’t then abrogate the responsibility for the mistake,” he said.

“Councils should simply be offering refunds and apologies and learn from their mistakes. It’s time councils owned their faults.”

If you haven’t received a letter but believe you could be eligible for a refund, go to hume.vic.gov.au/infringementrefund