OUR BANK, OUR THING IN GINGIN

March 22, 2026
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EXCLUSIVE: Gingin and Lancelin have one bank. Bendigo and Adelaide. They also have one shire council of nine elected members, two of whom at the wheatbelt community bank 80km north of Perth.
Shire president Linda Balcombe and Cr Robert Kestel are Bendigo directors and under local government rules must declare an interest in any Bendigo-related council item.
Cr Craig Hyne’s daughter also works at Bendigo whose model is based on local people co-owning and operating branches to ensure profits are reinvested back into the 3500sqkm shire of about 6350 people.
The shire also banks with Bendigo.
On March 17, Crs Balcombe and Kestel declared an impartiality interest and stayed to vote on two motions by fellow Bendigo members Wendy Harris and Stephen Beckwith to 1) investigate and identify administrators of the social media page ‘Voices of Gingin’ and 2) confine public comments on shire business to the shire president and CEO to avoid any, “negative and disparaging public commentary”.
Cr Andrea Vis did not attend, so Cr Balcombe as presiding officer used her casting vote to pass the Voices motion. The second proposed motion was passed 5/3.
Officers said the ‘independent’ investigation the shire wants the local government department and WAEC to conduct into Voices would determine if the online site breached any legislation: “It should include identifying the administrator of the page which may trigger an investigation by the Corruption and Crime Commission.”
The officers recommendation that councillors adopt both motions were put up by acting CEO and executive manager regulatory and development services James Bayliss, son-in-law of former shire president Wayne Fewster who left council in 2024 and whose wife still works at the shire (CEO Scott Wildgoose is suspended until further notice after council announced a ‘workplace investigation’ on February 26).
Voices of Gingin was formerly called ‘Gingin Ratepayers Collective’ administered by Crs Lincoln Stewart and David Wilke who left the page to run for council in 2023. The site was rebranded by a new collective registered as a not-for-profit private members association with a board and bank account.
StreetWise knows the identity of the online administrators who opened the account. So would Crs Balcombe and Kestel, whose daughter works as a Bendigo assistant branch manager and set up Voices’ bank account in 2023 after Crs Stewart and Wilkie left the former Facebook page that had no board or bank account.
“Linda was in the bank at the time but had nothing to do with setting it up,” one of the three admins told StreetWise today. “Rob Kestel’s daughter set it up. It is extremely likely that Linda would have known eventually, she knows everything. We’re a small community.”
The board of Gingin Ratepayers Collective met today and voted to send a ‘cease and desist’ notice to CEOs of Bendigo and the shire and pursue a damages claim through the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. A formal complaint will be lodged with the department and a request made for a monitor to intervene.
On Wednesday, Moore River Ranch and Wildlife Sanctuary board member Lincoln Stewart also wrote to Bendigo CEO Richard Fennell: “This letter is not issued in my capacity as a councillor, does not constitute Shire of Gingin business, and should not be construed as representing the views of the shire or council.”
The demand letter states months of harassment and threats had caused, “reputational damage to Moore River Ranch and Wildlife Sanctuary, a not-for-profit organisation of which I am a founding director. My association with the organisation has been directly impacted, which is having an adverse effect on our animal rescue operations and community work”.
Cr Stewart has been reported for allegedly breaching local government rules, has before the courts a violence restraining order against his neighbour and in May faces off with Cr Balcombe’s husband Steve who in January was charged by police for allegedly using a carriage service (mobile phone) to menace, harass or cause offence. Mr Balcombe also is president of a local sporting club that benefits from both shire and Bendigo bank funding in which Cr Balcombe would have had to declare her interest.
During public question time on January 20, ratepayer Kate Lane asked: “An announcement made on the 7 January 2026 stated charges have been laid against a member of the public regarding matters impacting one or more of the shire’s councillors, in such circumstances any councillor having close associations with the person charged would be expected to recuse themselves from Council until the court proceedings are finalised. “It appears that this has not occurred. Could you explain why?”

Conflict nightmare

SHIRE president and Bendigo board member Linda Balcombe has worked as community officer at the bank since 2014, the “backbone of the Gingin and Lancelin bank branches”.
Bendigo describes her as the, “go-to for everything board and community related, quietly getting all the behind-the-scenes jobs done, supporting our directors, and keeping us all on track. A true lady of many talents, and one we’d be absolutely lost without.”
Cr Balcombe in her 2025 candidates pitch confirmed that her Bendigo board position, “gives me opportunities to work with many community groups”. She added: “I truly believe in open, transparent and accountable local government and will endeavour to consistently promote this within our community.”
Elected as Gingin’s first female shire president in October last year, Cr Balcombe and most of the bank directors and shire councillors, and their relatives, are active members of the community who sit on various boards and committees of sports clubs, schools and recreation groups in this close-knit community.
As elected members, councillors regularly debate and decide on matters related to these entities’ submissions and applications for funds and community grants. Imagine the conflict of interest nightmare. Minutes for nearly every council meeting since 2001 should include councillors’ conflict of interest declarations.
One can assume some if not most elected members and/or their businesses bank with Bendigo in which case financial interests should feature prominently in two decades worth of shire minutes.
Ms Harris and Mr Beckwith who are bound under the Bendigo code of conduct were in their rights as ratepayers to move motions about local issues but instead chose the electors forum to attack administrators of the online page followed by more than 500 people. Effectively, they were asking for the publication of names and personal information about clients of their own bank including Gingin Ratepayers Collective, likely breaching their own bank’s code of conduct?
They also singled out Voices of Gingin and Cr Stewart who they believe administers the Voices’ page even though their own bank manages the account held by Gingin Ratepayers Collective. Was there a memo?
A Bendigo Bank spokesperson told StreetWise on Friday: “Bendigo Bank Community Bank Board Directors are bound by the Bank’s Code of Conduct, which outlines high expectations of ethical conduct and includes an obligation to manage any potential or perceived conflicts of interest that may arise from their involvement in other organisations or public office.”
The bank also raised the distinction between the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Board and the Board of Gingin Districts Community Financial Services Ltd, “to which your enquiry refers, and of which we confirm Robert Kestel is a current director”.
Former deputy president Cr Kestel was instrumental in setting up Gingin Districts Community Financial Services, which since 2001 has held the franchise for the two community bank branches in Gingin and Lancelin. The steering committee formed to promote the establishment of ‘Our Bank’ included Cr Kestel, former shire president David Roe, former shire president and farmer Wayne Fewster who joined council in 1993, his brother Max, real estate agent Tom Cabassi, the shire’s first clerk Norm Wallace (late), beekeeper Ron Pollard, farmer Bruce Watson, healthcare worker Kerryn Anderson and Berwyn Wood.
Ms Harris resigned from the group in 2012, the same year Mr Beckwith joined the group.
Bendigo has directed funding to numerous organisations including the Gingin Community Resource Centre, Gingin Recreation Group, Gingin Basketball Association, Gingin Reds Cricket Club, Lancelin Bowling Club, Centre Lancelin Ledge Point Pirates Football Club, Gingin Aquatic Super Seals and other sporting and community groups. Many of these organisations have appeared repeatedly in council agendas over recent years in relation to infrastructure, leases, funding allocations and strategic planning decisions.
The concern is over possible undisclosed interests within a tightly connected network of individuals who hold positions in council, bank governance, funded organisations and family business structures. Community banking models are designed to support local initiatives, not concentrate influence across governance roles.
The scale and depth of overlapping relationships in Gingin are alleged to far exceed normal community expectations. A documented pattern of failures to disclose financial and impartiality interests under the act is now emerging. It does not pass the pub test. For example:

* Cr Balcombe is a founder of Gingin CRC, which has received significant funding from Bendigo while also receiving substantial ongoing financial contributions from the shire for its operational costs. The CRC is managed by Carrie Edwards, who is a close personal associate of Cr Balcombe.
Ms Edwards was appointed returning officer in the 2025 local government elections in which WAEC identified procedural failures in the conduct of that election including the potential conflict of interest concerns over Edwards’ role given her personal and professional connections.

* Cr Kestel is closely connected to multiple funded entities, including the Gingin Recreation Group and Project Gingin, where he holds a leadership role as president. Project Gingin recently entered into a joint funding arrangement with Bendigo Bank for the installation of a digital sign within the town, a project that required shire approval. No conflicts of interest were declared.

* Cr Hyne sits on the committee of a sporting group that benefits from both shire and bank funding. His daughter is employed at Bendigo and his son last year received a Bendigo Bank-funded scholarship for university fees. He is associated with Country Values Real Estate with Bendigo board member Mr Cabassi.

StreetWise followed up with Bendigo: “For clarification, the Board of Gingin Districts Community Financial Services Limited was set up as a community members financial association of which the shire and deputy president are board members and run the association’s financial business through Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. How is this not a breach of your code of conduct?”
The bank declined to comment further.

Postscript

A THIRD killer has joined Facebook stalking the pages of Voices of Gingin and StreetWise Media.
Eddie Green’s page is named after US outlaw Eugene Green, a member of the John Dillinger gang that killed 10 men, wounded seven others, robbed banks and police arsenals and staged jail breaks across the Mid-West in the early 1930s.
As reported on March 16, 2026 (‘Assassins, serial killers & free speech in Gingin’), StreetWise asked the shire whether the proposed investigation into the Voices administrators would also investigate other now defunct pages such as ‘John Booth’ and ‘Ed Gein’ where the shire president, councillors and members of the public supported disparaging remarks about Cr Stewart. Crickets.
The Gein site was active when Cr Stewart ran as a federal Senate candidate in 2025.
The Booth page was named after John Wilkes Booth who assassinated US president Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The second page was named after ‘Butcher of Plainfield’ Wisconsin, US serial killer Ed Gein who in the mid-1950s stole corpses from local graveyards for his personal use.
Resident lawyer Mike Cramb described the second motion as, “a deeply troubling development”. He posted on Friday: “Local government exists to serve the public, not to curate, sanitise or monopolise public discourse, who may express them, or how robustly they may be stated. Nor is it the role of elected officials to insulate themselves, or others, from criticism simply because that criticism may be uncomfortable. Democracy is not a feelings-management exercise”.
He said the proper response to strong public debate is not to narrow the channel of communication but to widen it: “When debate is centralised in a single office-holder, the public is entitled to ask: “What is being protected – clarity or control?”
By Carmelo Amalfi