Page 495 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 1990
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The Canberra Times on 14 December 1988 said:
The Minister responsible for the ACT, Clyde Holding, has rejected allegations by the Residents Rally for Canberra that the ACT Administration was responsible for a loss of $55m in revenue.
Radio reports on Monday said a spokesman for the Rally, Bernard Collaery, had claimed he had specific evidence of the losses.
In another move Mr Collaery, in the Canberra Times of 15 December, called for an independent public inquiry into alleged losses of revenue resulting from lease administration in the ACT.
This is the general tenor of a whole range of public statements which can be attributed to Mr Collaery over that period, and continues right through until this very time. The general result of this campaign of character assassination of the people who are charged with the responsibility of the administration of our leasehold system was to create an atmosphere of uncertainty and insecurity and it served to undermine morale within the public service. It was most eloquently commented upon by John Enfield in his defence of the public service in response to Mr Collaery's allegations. John Enfield, who is the Public Service Commissioner, said, and I quote from the Canberra Times, 25 March:
In particular, Mr Enfield objected to Mr Collaery's claim that the ACT for five years has been a "principality of the Labor Party" characterised by "patronage, appointments, cronyism and corruption". Mr Collaery went on to assert that the ALP had been "willingly assisted" in this and other duplicities "by the public administration of this capital".
As Secretary of the Department of Territories from May 1984 to July 23 1987, Mr Enfield said he was the most senior officer in the administration during that period and therefore responsible for it.
He said Mr Collaery's comments had no foundation and were offensive to him and in both his past and present public service roles.
"If you have been quoted correctly, I would like to have details of the information on which your remarks are based", Mr Enfield wrote. "If there is any repetition of comments of the kind attributed to you, I shall be taking legal advice".
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