Call for royal commission
BY BRETT COX
12 Mar, 2008 03:00 AM
More than 140 people who attended a public meeting at Wollongong Town Hall last night demanded a royal commission into corruption in the Illawarra.
The residents signed a petition calling for a royal commission into corruption in Wollongong, Shellharbour and Kiama and that Wollongong be allowed to vote for a new council along with the rest of the state in September.
The meeting was hosted by community group Wollongong Against Corruption whose spokesman Paul Matters also proposed a delegation be formed to make representations to Wollongong City Council's new administrators and its general manager, David Farmer.
Its first task would be to ask the council to accept liability for the "psychological damage" experienced by former council employee Vicki Curran.
Ms Curran alleges she was sexually assaulted by former council manager Joe Scimone and is seeking workers' compensation.
The delegation would also help establish a taskforce to investigate any other incidents of sexual assault within the council.
"We've been attacked as radical, extremist and a small organisation," Mr Matters told the meeting.
"But the political elite in this region, which is mainly the Labor Party, has failed us.
"The one thing that brings us together is that we've all had enough."
Neighbourhood committees should also be re-established, he said.
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