By Michael Newhouse
BRIMBANK City Council mayor Margaret Giudice has asked the state’s local government authority to investigate the leak of a secret council report proposing a large-scale sell-off of the council’s public land.
The report, which was marked “confidential”, proposed selling off council land, including a number of parks and some undeveloped public land, to fund what has been described as a $33-million park development fund, according to media reports.
The leaking of the report has sparked outrage among councillors and the mayor, who are concerned about a number of confidential documents and information that have been leaked over the last few months.
After meeting with CEO Marilyn Duncan last Tuesday, Cr Giudice wrote to the Minister for Local Government, Richard Wynne, last Wednesday, asking for the Department of Victorian Community’s local government authority to look into who leaked the proposal, which has seriously embarrassed council.
“It is extremely disappointing that council officer’s [sic] work is treated with such blatant disrespect,” Cr Giudice said in a statement last week.
“It also concerns me that those in possession of the report are not mature enough to handle such a complex policy issue,” she said.
Under the state’s Local Government Act, it is an offence for past and present councillors or council committee members to release confidential information.
The maximum penalty for someone found guilty of breaching the confidentiality requirement under the act is a fine of just over $10,700.
All councillors, as well as some council officers were given a copy of the confidential report at a briefing session held over the past month.
Cr Giudice told Star council had not discussed or considered the report since the information became public.
“At the moment nothing’s being considered because I want to find out what happened with the leak … at the moment things are sort of in limbo,” she said.
She would not say whether council would consider the option of selling land in the future.
Councillors who Star spoke to last week also would not comment on the contents of the confidential report.
A council spokesman told Star last week that council would not conduct its own investigation into who leaked the report, leaving it up to the relevant government body, Local Government Victoria, to investigate.
Late last week, John Watson, Local Government Victoria’s director of governance and legislation, said he had not received the mayor’s request from the minister, but that all matters forwarded to the department would be investigated.
“We start by just finding a bit more about it and then we make that judgement as to whether it warrants taking it to the full investigation,” Mr Watson said.
