Anti-corruption campaigner Simon Illingworth stands for Corangamite Shire council

Mr Illingworth, from Port Campbell, is standing for election in the shire’s coastal ward in this month’s local government elections.

The former police officer came to national attention during Melbourne’s gangland war and went on to work in the force’s ethical standards department, helping to root out corruption.

These days, Mr Illingworth leads a quieter life with his young family, but still puts his experience to good use.

“One of the roles that I do is speak nationally and internationally about ethics in decision making and I think that’s an important aspect to my background that would be very helpful on a shire,” he said.

“I’m a farmer, we rear about 80 Wagyu calves every year, we grow three-tonne of garlic that we sell online, I’m a surfer, fisherman and a father of two young kids.”

Mr Illingworth said there were a lot of voices currently not being heard. He also named a number of priorities for the region, with roads topping the list.

“One of the biggest problems that we’ve got here is that the Corangamite Shire, and indeed some of the other shires around here, are in a safe political seat, which means that we’ve been ignored for years and the roads are the greatest indication of that,” he said.

”We’ve spent maybe $2000 getting our cars fixed over the last three or four years and it’s just not good enough.”

He said retaining the village feel of towns like Port Campbell was important when it came to future development and growing tourism.

“Port Campbell’s charm is that it is a seaside village, you haven’t got the high rises. Locals in general are not against progress or the need to develop, it’s just that we don’t necessarily want to embrace all types of development,” he said.

“If we make our towns unique and worthwhile to stay in I think we can pick up and actually collect a lot more people. Additionally, I think the ever-expanding acreage of farms can be a good thing as far as the dairy industry goes, but also I think we need to look at smaller averages, say between five and 50 acres, where we can create some intensive farming opportunities that will also allow us to have a bit more diversity on the food trail and also that will help fix our ageing and stagnating population.

“I think there’s too much of trying to clone other shires, I think we need to be unique. That means we need to encourage business ideas and value-adding and we need to embrace the internet.”

Mr Illingworth said he also wanted to encourage a more artistic culture in Corangamite and be a voice for agriculture.

“We need a voice for our farmers here, there’s no two ways about it. We also rely heavily on our farming and that means the dairy price affects not only the dairy people but all farm-related businesses,” he said.

Mr Illingworth, who stood for Liberal Party preselection in 2009, said he was standing as an independent candidate.

The coastal ward is one of two wards being contested in the Corangamite Shire council election. Mr Illingworth is vying with Peter Harkin for a place at the council table. In the central ward, Helen Durant, Ruth Gstrein, Bev McArthur and Wayne Oakes are in the running for the three council positions.

Jo Beard in the south-central ward, Neil Trotter in the south-west ward and Lesley Brown in the north ward were the only candidates to nominate for their one-member wards.