The Melbourne City Council has been caught out using criminal tactics including evidence tampering to cover up rorted parking fine collection.

Melbourne’s leading newspaper the Herald Sun reported today that the Council had secret quotas in place to achieve revenue from parking fines regardless of the extent of illegal parking.

The City of Melbourne alone collects the best part of $30 million a year from parking fines and has grown dependent on it to feed its vast bureaucracy.

The Herald Sun reported a council source saying that the Council engaged in fraudulent activity including:

issuing fake fines on non-existent cars, working late to blitz sporting and entertainment venues and restaurant and nightclub strips, and not reporting unclear and confusing parking signs so they could book those who thought they were legally parked.

The Council CEO David Pitchford admitted that some Council staff had deliberately falsified records that the State Ombudsman had sought when he raided the Council’s offices over the scam.

Game on.