With a dying wife and months of having next to no sleep, Vojislav Potulic was struggling to hold things together.
The Yarraville pensioner, 80, was doing everything he could to ease the situation for his now late wife through the final stages of her battle with lung cancer.
On a trip to Highpoint shopping centre Mr Potulic made what he considered to be a simple mistake – he forgot to display their disability parking permit.
“I couldn’t sleep, I was looking after all my wife’s needs and I went into Highpoint to buy her some things,” he told Fairfax Media.
“When I got back, the ticket was there and I realised I forgot to put the permit on the dashboard.”
Mr Potulic drove straight to Maribyrnong Council’s Footscray office to explain what happened and show their valid permit.
He filled in a request for review then waited for news that the fine would be overturned.
The news never came – his request for compassion was rejected and he was forced to pay more than $150, despite struggling to get by on a pension.
“They treat people like they are just dogs; they are just looking to get money.”
Mr Potulic’s review was just one of hundreds sought for disability parking offences and thousands for other fines that have been rejected by Maribyrnong Council in recent years.
It formed one of a number of examples cited in a scathing report by Victoria’s Ombudsman that was tabled in state Parliament on Monday, calling on the western suburbs council to show more heart in its “rigid” infringement system.
The Victorian Ombudsman’s office investigated claims the council has been “callous” for a number of years in its handling of fines, and has an unfairly rigid review process.
Ombudsman Deborah Glass said the council’s practices were lacking in fairness and discretion when compared with five other metropolitan councils.
“A little compassion is needed when you are dealing with an 80-year-old whose wife is dying of cancer or a pensioner whose husband has Parkinson’s disease,” Ms Glass said.
“Fair systems of public administration need thoughtful exercise of discretion, not blanket rules, rigidly applied.”
Teresa Salerno, whose husband’s mobility is limited by Parkinson’s disease, accidentally displayed an expired disabled parking permit and was fined $159.
Despite showing the council a parking permit valid until 2020, the review was unsuccessful.
The 68-year-old aged pensioner said that living on $300 a fortnight made it very difficult for them to pay the fine.
“I got so upset, I’m a pensioner and I just couldn’t afford it, but they just had no pity in any way,” she said.
Shifrah Blustein, a lawyer with western suburbs community legal centre WEstjustice, said the council’s “callous and inflexible” infringements review process is part of a drive to raise revenue at any social cost.
“It was clear from the cases we were seeing that the council’s approach to reviewing infringements was overly rigid, unfair and driven by revenue raising rather than consideration of a person’s circumstances,” she said.
“We have heard countless stories of clients forgoing buying food and medicine to pay unfair fines issued by Maribyrnong.”
The damning report follows a decision by Maribyrnong Council in 2015 to switch off all of its paid parking meters in central Footscray and Yarraville village, following a bungled introduction of parking meters to Yarraville and the assault of two of the councillors at a meeting.
The decision has created a shortfall to council coffers of about $200,000 each month, with total losses now approaching $6 million.
Maribyrnong Council told the Ombudsman they were worried about misuse of disability parking permits, but the Ombudsman found this contradictory because the people being fined for parking in disabled spots were entitled to park there.
The Ombudsman recommended the council update internal review guidelines, improve staff training and pay back five individuals whose cases the report considered.
Council accepted the first two recommendations, but refuses to budge on four of the five fines.
Maribyrnong Council chief executive Stephen Wall said while the council believes the report “oversimplifies and unfairly represents” its review procedures, it will implement the Ombudsman’s first two recommendations.
But Mr Wall said there is no legal basis to follow the third recommendation to refund any amounts or compensate the individuals concerned.
“All of these matters have been finalised, either by payment of the original infringement or after being upheld in the Magistrates’ Court and we will seek further legal advice.”
