Wyndham City councillors have unanimously passed a vote of no confidence against their Mayor Preet Singh, who refused to resign amid a character reference scandal.
Passed at a special meeting on Monday night, the motion does not obligate Cr Singh formally to step down but does capture councillors’ and community’s sentiments towards him.
Cr Peter Maynard who moved the motion of no confidence, described Cr Singh’s actions as ‘morally reprehensible’.
“Whilst we can all acknowledge that the mayor has done nothing illegal, he has shown an extremely concerning error of judgement — something we simply cannot tolerate in the leader of this council,” he said at the online meeting.
All councillors spoke to the decision, with Cr Larry Zhao noting he believed ‘the decision was not about racism at all’ and announcing he would boycott the next council meeting ‘dysfunction as normal’.
The vote follows a media statement from the councillors earlier this month, where they stated they were ‘united to call for the mayor to resign’, and were ‘working behind the scenes to urge Cr Singh to step down’.
The state government have also intervened, installing an independent monitor at the municipality amidst a period of heightened scrutiny towards local government transparency.
What did Preet Singh do?
In April 2024, before he was elected to Wyndham City Council, Cr Preet Singh provided a reference for Kashyap Patel, who has been charged with grooming and sexually assaulting a child under 16.
Cr Singh’s reference describes Patel as someone of ‘high integrity’ despite his assault charges, and argues the offences are ‘a one-off event’ and ‘completely outside of [his] usual character’.
Provided during Cr Preet Singh’s time as a Justice of the Peace, the reference impacted Patel’s County Court judgement but was provided prior to his guilty plea.
In the aftermath of Patel’s verdict, many residents have called for Cr Singh’s resignation, with three protests and a parliamentary petition filed against him.
Though since ‘accepting accountability for his error of judgement’, Cr Singh has defended his actions online, stating last month he ‘had done nothing illegal, criminal, or unlawful’, and intended to return to office ‘shortly’.
Cr Singh has described the calls as a ‘sustained campaign waged against him’, suggesting they ‘aim to destabilise a democratically elected Council and undermine what we have achieved together’.
“Capitulating to this pressure would not reflect accountability, it would wrongly legitimise allegations that are false, unfounded, and made to instil other leaders into positions of influence at Wyndham City,” Cr Singh wrote online.
Cr Preet Singh has not yet commented on the vote.
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