John Woodman asked to go to Premier over land deal, Casey Council corruption probe hears
Explosive phone recordings reveal a property executive asked John Woodman — who is embroiled in the Casey Council corruption probe — to approach Premier Daniel Andrews about a plan to get land rezoned.
VIC News
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A Leighton Properties executive asked a developer if he could go directly to Premier Daniel Andrews about rezoning land.
A phone recording played during an anti-corruption hearing into Casey Council developments heard executive Tom Kenessey discuss the company’s plan to rezone land in Cranbourne West with developer John Woodman.
Mr Kenessey asked Mr Woodman, who would have been paid a $2 million success fee if the rezoning was approved, whether it was possible to bypass Planning Minister Richard Wynne.
Mr Woodman said it would take between $14 million and $15 million to get him to intervene with Premier Daniel Andrews on behalf of Leighton and that still might not do the trick.
“Is there no chance that we could speak to, you know, Wynne-ies boss or bosses and tell him to just get on with it?” Mr Kenessey says on the recording.
“You mean the premier?” Mr Woodman says.
“I don’t want to tell you this, Tom, but I’m going to, I am not going to the Premier of
Victoria about C219.”
Mr Kenessey said it response: “Yep, well, I just had to ask the question”.
Mr Woodman goes on to say that “if I was getting $15 million, or $14 million I might be inclined to do it but I’m not sure that at the end of the day it would carry much weight”.
“The Premier of Victoria is not going to stick his neck out unless we can provide the necessary ammunition that the Minister for Planning needs.”
In his defence, Mr Keneseey told the IBAC hearing that he was not actually trying to get Mr Woodman to intervene with Mr Andrews, but was trying to get Mr Woodman to put this strategy in writing so he use it to persuade Leighton to sack him as a consultant.
“I was setting him up,” he said.
Mr Kenessey was later confronted with recording of a conversation with Mr Woodman in which Mr Woodman said things he had done on Leighton’s behalf were against policy and could see them “thrown in jail”.
Mr Kenessey said he didn’t not know what Mr Woodman was referring to, and that he was still trying to get Mr Woodman to write down his strategy in order to get him sacked.
When asked whether he had told Leighton bosses about Mr Woodman admitting to doing things that could land him in jail, Mr Kenessey said: “no”.
Mr Woodman has been accused of paying Casey councillors Sam Aziz and Geoff Ablett a total of $1.2 million in order to get favourable planning outcomes.
He also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on donations to political candidates and MPs.
One of the recordings played at IBAC heard Mr Woodman telling Mr Kenessey about payments he was giving to former Narre Warren South MP Judith Graley to talk to Treasurer Tim Pallas.
Mr Woodman also boasted of his connection with Mr Pallas, who IBAC has previously been told attended fundraisers with the developer.
Mr Pallas has previously said he always acted appropriately when meeting with developers and said there was no moral equivalence between properly organised fundraisers he attended and people who were “receiving brown paper bags”.
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