By NOEL MURPHY
GEELONG’s Trades Hall and acting mayor Bruce Harwood have lashed out at State Government over the timing of a new probe into council ward funding.
A report announcing the investigation was widely publicised the day mayoral election kits arrived in Geelong letterboxes.
The report included a focus on Trades Hall-backed candidate John Mitchell’s ward spending during his two terms on council.
“It’s clearly deliberate,” Trades Hall secretary Tim Gooden told the Independent.
“They want to get their man, Ken Jarvis, up at all costs.”
Cr Harwood said a Government statement on the inquiry was available to media outlets before City Hall.
He strongly rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing at council.
“We’re happy for the report and for a review to be done. We are absolutely confident there have been no breaches of the Local Government Act.”
“But the manner in which information is being released and council’s inability to access the relevant site to view media releases is of concern.”
Mr Gooden accused the Government of a specific campaign to gain control of City Hall through the directly elected mayoral process.
“There’s a whole agenda behind all this to get as many positions of power as they can,” he said.
“They’ll do whatever they can to do that. I’m not at all surprised they released a grubby report.
“When you read all the stuff about ward allocations, I haven’t seen anyone say anything about breaching company laws or banking laws. If there was a problem wouldn’t you give it to police?”
The Independent received a media release headlined ‘Report reveals ‘risky’ councillor ward funds’ from Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell’s office on the afternoon of 7 November. The release was dated 6 November.
Premier Denis Napthine spokesman Mark Lee said the Local Government Inspectorate was “entirely independent” of the Government.
The Government’s lawyers would be interested in any imputation about the timing of the report’s release, he said.
Mr Jarvis said he had “absolutely no personal contact with the premier or any State Government minister since well before this campaign started”.
Mr Jarvis said he was not a member of the Liberal party and was not encouraged to stand by the Premier or any Liberal minister.
“If elected I will be beholden to no one and will be acting solely in the interests of the Geelong region.”
