Wyndham councillor Intaj Khan has pleaded guilty to eight charges relating to the filing of register of interest returns, but will have to wait until next month before a sentence is handed down.
Fronting the Sunshine Magistrates Court this morning, Cr Khan faced three counts of failing to disclose companies in which he held office during the return period; three counts of failing to disclose companies in which he held a financial interest; and two counts of failing to submit ordinary returns between February 2016 and February 2017.
The Local Government Act 1989 requires individual councillors to lodge returns – which detail property holdings, board positions and the like – every six months while they are in office. This is to ensure that councillors declare any conflicts of interests regarding council business.
If found guilty, Cr Khan faces fines up to a maximum of $75,000.
Defence lawyer Sarah Keating argued that Cr Khan’s failure to disclose all companies in which he held office or held a financial interest was inadvertent rather than deliberate and resulted in no personal benefit to him.
Ms Keating said the companies that Cr Khan had not included in his returns were in name only and had never traded.
“Mr Khan did not appreciate that a business … [which] doesn’t involve any turnover, is not trading and is effectively sitting there as a shelf company, that those were things that had to be included in an ordinary return,” she said.
Ms Keating called on Magistrate Therese McCarthy to avoid a conviction, arguing that a conviction would have “an excessively detrimental effect” on Cr Khan as both a councillor and businessman.
However, prosecution barrister Allan Sharp argued that in 2015, the Local Government Inspectorate had issued Cr Khan with a written warning regarding the lodging of ordinary returns, and Wyndham council had conducted training.
Mr Sharp said a man of Cr Khan’s intelligence and standing should know that all property interests must be declared on the return, stating that he was pleading guilty to multiple offences, not a single infraction.
Magistrate McCarthy said she did not have sufficient information to guide her in sentencing, and called for written submissions that explained the defence’s argument that Cr Khan had acted inadvertently, and detailed the extent of Cr Khan’s training and his participation in that training.
The matter will reconvene on July 12 for a sentencing hearing.
Cr Khan declined to comment on the hearing outside of court.
