Under questioning, Cr Ablett was asked if he ever “rigged anything” with fellow Casey councillor Sam Aziz, who has also been the recipient of payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr Woodman in return for his vote on council. “I never rigged anything with Sam Aziz,” replied Cr Ablett, who was then played a recorded conversation between him and state Liberal MP Neale Burgess in November 2018. In it, Cr Ablett described a conversation he had just had with Cr Aziz. “I had a talk to Sam last night and I said, 'Look … I’m not in your block any more mate,’ because I am sick of rigging stuff.” Tens of thousands of dollars were secretly paid to Cr Ablett in 2014, when he was mayor, by Mr Woodman, an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission hearing has revealed. It came ahead of a rezoning proposal that would have delivered massive profits to Mr Woodman’s company and property giant Leighton. Evidence on Monday detailed several undeclared payments made to Cr Ablett from Mr Woodman, who, among several projects, was trying to get a large property in Cranbourne West rezoned from industrial to residential for Leighton, now known as CIMIC.

The rezoning would have netted Leighton a $100 million windfall and Mr Woodman said, in evidence to the hearings, his company would have received a payment of "around about $2 million”. Loading Counsel assisting IBAC, Michael Tovey, QC, quizzed Cr Ablett over payments he received from Mr Woodman. Some were made just days before Cr Ablett first supported rezoning the industrial land. Cr Ablett admitted there had been discussions with Mr Woodman before the rezoning vote, and agreed he’d been paid by Mr Woodman without declaring any payments until the next year. When he was mayor of Casey, Cr Ablett – who has also trained or owned horses with Mr Woodman since 2010 – voted at least five times for council motions favouring Mr Woodman’s company in 2014 without declaring the payments.

IBAC has indicated that, in total, Cr Ablett may have got as much as $330,000 from Mr Woodman. This included a contract for the purchase of a house in Gippsland that was probed by IBAC on Monday. Cr Ablett agreed that two cash deposits of $5000 were made into his bank accounts, in November 2013 and in January 2014, by Mr Woodman. He initially denied he had known Mr Woodman was working for Leighton on the rezoning. Cr Ablett was then shown a memo sent in February 2014 to him and other councillors by Mr Woodman outlining why his company wanted the land rezoned for Leighton. Mr Woodman in 2014 also paid $15,000 off the credit card of Mr Ablett ahead of his unsuccessful run that year as the Liberal Party candidate for Cranbourne. In a separate wiretap played at Monday’s hearings, Mr Woodman and Cr Ablett are heard discussing the version of events they will give to The Age as the newspaper last November probed the pair's financial dealings on the purchase of a house in Gippsland.

It was also revealed that Cr Ablett was paid $60,000 last financial year by Mr Woodman, to look after a retired racehorse named Prima Facie that did nothing but sit in a paddock. Cr Ablett denied there was anything untoward about this payment because of his skills caring for horses. Loading At one point in Monday’s hearing Mr Tovey pointed out that Cr Ablett had just $33 in the bank in November 2013, soon before the first rezoning vote. “Your balance is very precarious, is it not? Of $33. And a deposit of $5000 comes in. Where did that come from?” “I can honestly say, sir, that I don’t know,” Cr Ablett said, before Mr Tovey told him it was from Mr Woodman. Cr Ablett then said it would have been for the “upkeep … with Good Call”, a race horse Mr Woodman’s daughter had bought a share in three years earlier. The hearings continue.