Marlene Kairouz has been named by the Age Investigation into branch stacking as complicit in the same operations that the disgraced Somyurek has been sacked over.
The Age newspaper quotes from secretly recorded tapes from the joint conference room she shares (shared) with Somyurek which shows her encouraging her staff to take part in the operation led by Somyurek.
BREAKING NEWS-Kairouz RESIGNS. Somyurek Ally Caught Out Too. Kairouz should go Immediately.
Marlene Kairouz has fallen on her sword after calls this morning from two colleagues, Lisa Neville, and Tim Pallas urged Ms Kairouz to consider her position.
Shortly later Ms Kairouz made the following statement.
“This morning I notified the Premier that I will stand aside from my ministerial responsibilities and notified the Governor of the resignation of my commission,” she said in a statement.
It has been an enormous honour to serve the Victorian people across a number of portfolios including Suburban Development, Local Government and Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation.
I no longer want these matters to be a distraction to the Government. They have placed enormous pressure on my family and caused them great distress.
I look forward to the opportunity to clear my name and am confident any investigative process will do so. I note that these matters do not relate to any allegations of criminality or corruption.
I will continue to serve my electorate of Kororoit, which remains the greatest honour of my life.”
Marlene Kairouz has been named by the Age Investigation into branch stacking as complicit in the same operations that the disgraced Somyurek has been sacked over.
The Age newspaper quotes from secretly recorded tapes from the joint conference room she shares (shared) with Somyurek which shows her encouraging her staff to take part in the operation led by Somyurek.
In the recordings the Age claims that Kairouz thought it an excellent idea that taxpayer funded staff were running the operation. Kairouz claimed in another recording that she would make one of her employees available for the “stacking” operations.
The Age quotes further examples of inappropriate actions by Ms Kairouz and implies that she has acted contrary to the assurances she gave to Premier Andrews just yesterday.
Ms Kairouz was a Councillor at Darebin from 1998 to 2008 when she then became a parliamentarian in State Parliament. During her time at Darebin she was the Mayor on two occasions and a colleague of hers through this period was Peter Stephenson. The CEO of Darebin from 1999 to 2005 was Phillip Shanahan.
Ms Kairouz was the Local Government Minister when, in June 2018, she sent the municipal monitor to South Gippsland after a request from the then Mayor Lorraine Brunt. This monitor was Peter Stephenson who had worked as her colleague at Darebin Council from 1998-2008. This was detailed in the Commission of Inquiry report into South Gippsland Council authorised by Somyurek when he was the Minister for Local Government. A position he took over from Ms Kairouz late 2018. During this time, Phillip Shanahan was appointed to the Council CEO review committee in late 2018.
In 1997, the year before Stephenson and Kairouz became Councillors at Darebin, the then Government sacked Darebin Council. In 2012, 4 years after Kairouz and Stephenson ceased being Councillors at Darebin, the ombudsman released a damning investigative report into serious governance matters existing at Darebin Council. Newspaper reports over this period suggest the Council might be sacked but this did not occur.
Somyurek sacked South Gippsland Council in June 2019 but failed to table the Councillor submissions to Parliament as “promised”. The submissions were produced by the Councillors at his request in a letter dated April 2nd, 2019 in response to the monitor report produced by Stephenson on March 21st, 2019.
Parliament sacked the Council in a rushed one day sitting without any parliamentarian having read the Councillor submissions. The Councillors at the time requested that the submissions should be made public to show the facts, but this had not been done and the parliament vote for dismissing Council was therefore a one-sided affair. It is questionable whether due process had been followed by the Minister in this matter.
Danial Andrews should investigate all the important serious decisions made by Kairouz/Somyurek during their time as Minister for Local Government. The ratepayers of South Gippsland deserve this as do the dismissed Councillors who have never been given a fair hearing. If the allegations as aired regarding these two and the branch stacking affair are true, it might just be that their earlier decisions were not taken with the community’s interests at heart as they claimed at the time.
At the very least, Kairouz needs to follow her buddy out the door.