AN INVESTIGATION costing Brimbank residents $25,000 has found no evidence that a private meeting of Brimbank City Council was tape recorded.
Deloitte, an international forensic examination firm that was employed by the council, has studied the recordings that were taken off the Sunshine Residents and Ratepayers Association’s (SunRAA) website.
The association was given the tapes by an anonymous local resident who claimed they were recorded in the Council’s mezzanine room on 13 June.
The investigation, which included interviewing all councillors, staff and two members from the gallery who were present at the ordinary council meeting and the private meeting, attempted to identify the person responsible for the recording.
The investigation’s key findings include that there was no evidence to indicate that the recordings were made as claimed but rather suggests that there was a possibility they may have been made when a tape recorder was left or hidden in the chambers by a person who was required to leave during the private meeting.
Brimbank City mayor Natalie Suleyman has described SunRAA’s call for the investigation, which was made in writing on 19 June, as “disgraceful behaviour”.
“SunRRA demanded this independent inquiry then point-blank refused to cooperate,” Cr Suleyman said.
“This led to Deloitte being unable to reach a definite conclusion as to who was responsible for these unlawful activities,” she said.
In a media release, SunRAA members state that they “stand by their statement of facts” regarding the broadcast of the in-camera session.
They claim the investigation was a “waste” of ratepayers’ money, which turned out to be “inconclusive”.
“If they didn’t believe us in the first place why go to the wasted expense of commissioning a $25,000 report without once writing to us requesting the tape recordings?” SunRAA president Darlene Reilly said.
“Any Year 10 problem-solving exercise would have found that a recording device was not left in the chamber because only the miked speakers came through and not every councillor could be heard,” she said.
Ms Reilly said SunRAA did not cooperate with the investigators because it was told it would not get a copy of the report’s findings.
The council is expected to ask SunRAA in writing to remove the tape recording excerpts from its website.
But SunRAA member John Hedditch said the association was not intending to take them off.
“There is no doubt about what happened. The council mucked up, it left its microphone on and piped a conversation into the mezzanine room,” Mr Hedditch said.
“The council has wasted $25,000 trying to prove that SunRAA did something illegal when it didn’t. It leaves us now with council wasting $25,000 on a witchhunt,” he said.
The council is expected to provide a letter outlining the outcome of the investigation to Local Government Victoria.
It was not expected to make an additional investigation into the matter.
Councillor Ken Capar moved an amendment during last week’s council meeting, asking for the Deloitte’s report to be made available for public, which was unanimously carried by councillors.
