KINGSTON Council will refer invoices submitted by the state government-appointed municipal monitors for independent auditing, with a referral to the Local Government Inspectorate and Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission to follow.
Kingston Council has been overseen by monitors for close to a year. Monitor John Tanner arrived at council last August, followed by John Watson in October. Last week Kingston Council confirmed that it had discovered “administrative errors” in invoices submitted by John Tanner.
Among the points of concern were that Tanner had invoiced council for work undertaken on 30 February and 31 February, dates that do not exist. At their most recent public meeting, councillors voted to “refer the matter of concerns regarding Municipal Monitors’ invoicing to the Audit and Risk Committee and Internal Auditors if the committee deems appropriate, and refer the matter and any relevant documents as deemed appropriate by the Chief Executive Officer to the Local Government Inspectorate and Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission.”
The mayor Georgina Oxley supported the proposal to refer the matter for assessment by the independent Audit and Risk Committee. She said “we as a council are simply stating that we are concerned, we ask that there be action taken, and I know that those investigations are occurring at the moment into what’s occurred.”
“We don’t have the full picture, but what’s important is that we get it, and if money does need to be paid back that it’s paid back with interest depending on how long that’s been occurring for,” the mayor said. “Those matters are now referred off to the people who know the most about it, that can determine if there’s been any wrongdoing, and that can make sure that the people that are sitting over the top of us conducting assessments of our behaviours as a council and our integrity as a council, also have those checks and balances on them as well.”
A short statement provided by Kingston Council about the matter last month read that “council is working with Mr Tanner to correct three minor administrative errors that were made in an invoice submitted in his statutorily appointed role as a municipal monitor” (“Council confirms ‘errors’ in monitor payments”, The News 29/7/2026). The News is not alleging any wrongdoing by the monitors, only that the matter is being referred for auditing.
The decision to refer the matter for further investigation was approved with the support of Crs Oxley, Sarah O’Donnell, Chris Howe, Caroline White, Georgia Erevnidis, and Jane Agirtan.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 5 August 2026