Property developer says he did not bribe councillors

John Woodman says he did not bribe officials with millions of dollars for favourable planning decisions.

John Woodman, who is a consultant to property developers, defends his reputation and alleges the IBAC report into the City of Casey has caused unreasonable damage. Picture: Ian Currie

Property developer John Woodman has denied bribing Melbourne councillors in exchange for favourable planning decisions, despite an anti-corruption report finding he funnelled more than $1m to the officials.

During more than an hour-long a press conference held by targets of IBAC’s Operation Sandon report, which found former Casey council mayor Sam Aziz and ex-Casey councillor Geoff Ablett accepted money and in-kind support from Mr Woodman, Mr Woodman and Cr Aziz launched their official defence of the findings on Monday but refused to answer questions about their conduct until 50 minutes in.

After he was repeatedly asked “did you bribe Casey councillors?”, Mr Woodman eventually responded: “No.”

“The assertion that had been made by our friends at team IBAC … are answered in my submission. unfortunately for you people, that submission illegally was omitted from the Sandon report,” he said.

John Woodman who is a consultant to property developers, and former Casey Mayor Sam Aziz defend their reputations into the IBAC report regarding corruption at the City of Casey. Picture: Ian Currie

For the first 40 minutes, Mr Woodman pointed to various slides on a power point presentation with a metre long ruler and stood in front of a collections of posters including one with an “adapted” Shakespeare quote from Hamlet which read: “Something is rotten in the state of IBAC”.

During this time he insisted specific planning decisions made by Casey council, responsible for outer southeastern suburbs in Melbourne, were “dangerous and irresponsible”.

In response to a finding that he benefited from a decision to build an intersection earlier than planned, Mr Woodman said he had video evidence accidents were occurring and therefore the intersection should have been built quickly.

As well, he admonished a finding on another planning matter relating to the six metre width of a sporting field. Mr Woodman benefited from a decision to reduce open space requirements and road widths by decreasing costs and providing more land to develop.

But on Monday, he said the amendment to the permit in support of reducing the open space was “passed unanimously” by councillors and the councillors could see the “stupidity” of the proposal to retain the open space.

The other target of IBAC’s Operation Sandon, Cr Aziz — who operated the power point presentation — claimed he did not receive a number of cash payments totalling $600,000 from Mr Woodman.

“I've never accepted a bribe in my life,” he said.

He denied calling Mr Woodman a “bottomless ATM” and said the cash he took from Mr Woodman was actually his own money he had asked the property developer to invest for him.

“All the financial arrangements that I had with anybody in life were legitimate, and were appropriate and had nothing to do with my role as counsellor,” he said.

Cr Aziz also denied he had a conflict-of-interest by having a professional and personal relationship with Mr Woodman and said the planning decisions were “meritorious” and benefited the community.

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

IBAC also found counsellor Geoff Ablett received more than $550,000 in payments and other financial benefits from Woodman between 2010 and 2019 in exchange for promoting his interests on the council.