Gurmesh Singh Responds to Claims from Woodward

Less than 48 hours since the National party elected Gurmesh Singh as their candidate for Coffs Harbour, Labor is attempting to uncover dirt.

However, surprisingly nothing has come from his opposing state candidate Tony Judge, but from Andrew Woodward.

Mr Woodward is running in the Federal election for Labor in the Division of Cowper.

In what appears to be an effort to discredit Mr Singh, on Monday morning, Mr Woodward wrote that “Documents available online indicate that so far in 2018, the Liberal-National Federal Government has granted Oz Group $3,205,000”.

Mr Woodward’s statement continues on saying that, “To ensure confidence in the system, Mr Singh should hand back the $3,205,000 granted by the government to the company he chairs and self-fund investments”.

Mr Singh, who is the Chairman of Oz Group Co-op, clarified the claims to Triple M, saying that Mr Woodward has actually counted the same grant multiple times.

“He’s counted the same grant three times, three separate announcements, he’s just added them together”, Mr Singh said.

“We’ve got a whole executive team who looks after the day to day management of that co-operative, the operative word there is co-operative, it’s not a company’, he said.

While nothing has been said publicly by the state Labor candidate Tony Judge, Mr Singh said the latest claims show the type of campaign he can expect for his opposition.

“My six year old son has lived in this electorate longer than Andrew Woodward”, Mr Singh said.

“I’m really glad he is bringing some of this to light because it really shows the type of campaign we can expect from Labor, I want to run a positive campaign, about all the great things the Nationals can do for Coffs Harbour”.