Administrators have been appointed to restore order at Melbourne's troubled Brimbank council. The Victorian Government announced the appointment of three administrators two months after it sacked the western suburbs council for misconduct. Administrators Peter Lewinsky, Joanne Anderson and Meredith Sussex will form the new council and remain until 2012. Victorian Local Government Minister Richard Wynne said the administrators would perform normal council functions, including holding statutory meetings and making decisions on matters tabled. "The panel of three administrators, which will be chaired by Mr Lewinsky, brings the necessary experience and skills to tackle the extensive reform and rebuilding tasks at Brimbank," Mr Wynne said. Mr Lewinsky, who has previously worked as an administrator for the Cheltenham and Regional Cemeteries Trust and the Fawkner Crematorium and Memorial Park, will assume the role of mayor.
However a leading Victorian barrister asserts that sacking the Brimbank Council was unlawful as there is not enough evidence of poor behaviour to justify the move. In written legal advice to some of the 11 suspended councillors, Michael Pearce, SC, says they were denied natural justice when Local Government Minister Richard Wynne suspended them in September on a recommendation by council monitor Bill Scales. The advice says that Mr Wynne could not have been satisfied by the Scales report citing a serious failure to provide good government, and that the minister failed to consider what steps councillors had taken to fix problems.
Have ratepayers received natural justice?
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