Moyne Shire councillors vote 'no' to investigation of Clean Energy Council meeting

Cr Doukas introduced a motion at Tuesday's council meeting to direct Moyne Shire's acting chief executive to contact power company AGL to find out what occurred at the November meeting, which explored ways of promoting wind energy in the area.

An AGL employee who had attended the CEC meeting wrote an email to anti-wind farm campaigner Viva-Lyn Lenehan describing his concerns about it, which is why Cr Doukas wanted the acting chief executive to contact AGL to find out more.

A source told The Standard Cr Doukas was singled out at the meeting along with Ms Lenehan and Hamish Cumming as opponents of wind energy in the area.

Cr Jordan Lockett immediately asked whether the motion was similar to Cr Doukas' motion at the March meeting, which called for a formal investigation into council involvement in the CEC meeting.

Cr Doukas said it was similar, the only difference was the new motion specifically directed the acting chief executive to contact AGL. The outgoing chief executive Bill Millard, who is on leave until his contract ends in late April, had said at the March council meeting he had not contacted AGL but would do so if councillors asked him to.

Cr Doukas said he thought council was duty-bound to act.

"As far as I'm concerned, targeting myself and two others is a serious act. There's no disputing the fact it did happen, and if councillors aren't concerned with finding out why this happened then I'm very disappointed in the council itself," he said.

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Crs Lockett and Karen Foster both said the issue didn't warrant any further investigation.

"I think we've wasted a lot of time on this... and I think it's been dealt with. I think it's time to move on," Cr Foster said.

Cr Damian Gleeson said he had called the AGL employee to investigate further.

"He was absolutely devastated that a confidential email that he sent in response to a query has now become the focus of trying to bring the council down," Cr Gleeson said.

He said the AGL employee acknowledged he had called a Moyne council officer to express his concerns about the CEC meeting, but that the officer didn't know anything about it.

Cr James Purcell said he couldn't see any conclusive evidence council had asked the CEC to set up a meeting, however a source told The Standard the meeting was set up in response to concerns raised by a shire representative directly to the CEC.

The Standard is not aware of any evidence council played any further organisational role in the CEC meeting, nor that any council representative was behind the targeting of individuals at the meeting.

The motion was voted down six votes to one.

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