John Woodman and Sam Aziz hold joint press conference after scathing IBAC report

A property developer at the centre of an IBAC investigation has raised eyebrows at an hour-long press conference that featured a former Casey Councillor operating his powerpoint presentation.

Sam Aziz and John Woodman left media bewildered by their long press conference. Picture: Ian Currie

Two of the men at the centre of a major anti-corruption report have denied any wrongdoing in a bizarre hour-long press conference that misquoted Shakespeare.

Media at the event were bewildered on Monday as developer and consultant John Woodman delivered a lengthy tirade while former Casey Councillor Sam Aziz operated his power point presentation.

Last week, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission delivered a scathing report into Mr Woodman’s efforts to “improperly” influence planning decisions by paying or donating to political figures.

This included hundreds of thousands of dollars which flowed directly Mr Aziz, who IBAC found had pushed for council decisions that benefited Mr Woodman and his associates while repeatedly failing to declare a conflict of interest.

The developer sought to discredit IBAC in a 45-minute monologue about two of these decisions during which he waved a wooden ruler at the screen, tried to justify the changes and accused council officers of making mistakes.

Against the wall, a poster read “something is rotten in the state of IBAC – adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet”.

Mr Aziz operated the powerpoint at the event, except for a brief period when the presentation stopped working, and then answered questions against the wishes of the developer.

“He’s lost his voice, he’s got a cold,” Mr Woodman said when the media asked for comment.

He later reminded Mr Aziz that he paid to rent the function room.

John Woodman waved a wooden ruler at the screen during his monologue. Picture: Ian Currie

But Mr Aziz ignored this and addressed the media.

He denied that he had ever accepted a bribe in his life and claimed Casey Council was one of the best performing local governments in Australia before it was sacked by the state government over the scandal.

This is despite IBAC finding that the pair constructed a “loan agreement” to give the “appearance of legitimacy to the receipt of the $600,000 and the subsequent non-cash transfers of funds to Councillor Aziz”.

IBAC quoted an email from Mr Aziz to a company linked to Mr Woodman in which he calculated that, on top of his $600,000 “investment” he would receive an additional $540,000

The former councillor denied any conflict of interest lobbying for favourable planning decisions because it was always his “intent” to benefit the community.

Sam Aziz and John Woodman have denied wrongdoing. Picture: Ian Currie

“If Mr Woodman happened to have benefited from any of those decisions in any way, that is a secondary outcome,” Mr Aziz said.

“The whole situation basically destroyed a very capable government that was delivering for the people of Casey.”

IBAC found Casey Councillors “exhibited and tolerated behaviour that did not meet the standards required of them

Mr Woodman denied he had bribed councillors but refused to detail his reasons, instead referring to his 200-page response to IBAC from January 2023.

He said the watchdog had “peddled a false narrative”.