Wyndham was one of four audited councils to face a hearing into fraud and corruption control by the state government on Monday, July 28.
The hearing was held by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and followed two state auditor-general’s reports into local government financial transparency and handling of grants.
Council was represented at the meeting by chief executive Stephen Wall and deputy mayor Josh Gilligan.
The hearing was led by Laverton MP Sarah Connolly, serving as the committee chair, and attended by Point Cook MP Mathew Hilakari who is also a committee member.
Mr Hilakari quizzed council on the disclosure of financial overruns, transparency in budgets, the handling of state government grants and business conducted in confidentiality.
He questioned the circumstances surrounding Wyndham’s implementation of its new software system through purveyor Technology One.
He described the council’s prior attempt at a software overhaul with Oracle, a separate purveyor, as an overspend that was not accurately documented in public documents.
“The project was rated on track when we knew the project was not on track, wasn’t this a lie?” he said.
“Then you better tell me where the project funds of Oracle … were publicly disclosed.”
Mr Wall said the report would have been formulated with the best knowledge council was working with at the time, while Cr Gilligan labelled the assertion council knew the project was running over budget as untrue.
Council’s recent decision to not commit to spending more than $36 million of developer contributions raised in Point Cook for projects in the same suburb was also scrutinised.
Mr Hilakari suggested the council had been inconsistent with which set of legal advice it claimed to have been following on its right to divest the money from Point Cook.
Cr Gilligan rejected the claim and said the legal advice had not changed, but that the change reflected a newly elected council’s decision.
Cr Gilligan also refuted Mr Hilakari’s concern that council may be conducting a disproportionate amount of business confidentially.
“It is a bit rich of you to lecture me on confidentiality – governments with state and commonwealth persuasions make a raft of decisions under confidence,” Cr Gilligan said.
