By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A Parliamentary inquiry made no finding against Mr Bennie about the disclosure of the I Cook Foods closure order at a Community Chef board meeting on 22 February 2019.
The first inquiry into ICF’s closure stated that Mr Bennie made the briefing shortly after 12.45pm, just over an hour before the Acting Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton issued a public health alert.
Mr Bennie told the Parliamentary inquiry he briefed the board after ICF’s closure was already in the “public domain” via an ABC broadcast, he said.
“I have a recollection that it was raised by officers of Community Chef that a news announcement had been made in relation to I Cook Foods.”
He briefed the meeting because he “thought it was relevant in the context of all things we were talking about in the sector”.
“I thought it was then relevant and appropriate that I indicate what I understood about the situation.”
Community Chef Joe Ciccarone also told the inquiry that Mr Bennie briefed the board after the closure was “public knowledge”.
However, Liberal MP Wendy Lovell told Mr Ciccarone that this information “seems to be incorrect”.
At the meeting on the day of the closure, Community Chef’s board decided to offer “assistance” to ICF’s customers.
The arrangements were short-term, and only to ensure vulnerable customers to go without food, Mr Ciccarone said.
The business gained a “marginal” benefit from I Cook’s closure, he told the inquiry.
Out of I Cook’s former customers, only one council and an aged care home became an ongoing client, Mr Ciccarone said.
The inquiry found in 2020 that Community Chef gained additional business following the closure of ICF.
But it “could not determine if this was directly due to the position held by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the City of Greater Dandenong on the Community Chef Board, or any untoward behaviour by the CEO or the City of Greater Dandenong, Community Chef or the Department of Health and Human Services,” the inquiry stated.
