Page 685 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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Mr Speaker, this is a blatant lie. Westpac's own internal documents prove that the press release was untrue. I further note that the press release specifically omitted reference about Westpac's legal advisers - Allen, Allen and Hemsley - being raided by the Australian Taxation Office for involvement in tax evasion. Mr Fowler is living up to his reputation of lying - lying to the courts and to the Parliament. His minions act entirely without conscience, bullying witnesses, attempting to gag the Senate and political interference. Despite this, our Assembly has chosen to protect the bank under the rubric of sub judice so far - although that matter is under consideration - despite the bank having had a key witness tailed by private detectives at high speeds, illegal phone taps, and turning the legal system into a mockery. Westpac's legal advisers selectively claim pious sentiments.
Mr Speaker, Westpac's only goal is to cover up the truth. Sub judice is simply a convenient tool. Had these papers not been released in the South Australian Legislative Council, Mr Speaker, at the end of the injunctions they would have commenced further actions to make it sub judice again, using both the Assembly and the courts in the most cynical way in furthering their conspiracy with their lawyers to pervert the course of justice. In due time once again, Mr Speaker, I will ask for those papers to be tabled.
Advertisements placed in various magazines in the mid-1980s with caricatures of leading Westpac executives and accompanying statements have an unfortunate irony, given the subsequent disclosure of the Westpac loans affair. The first of these is Rob Douglass, General Manager of Westpac's Merchant Banking Division and Managing Director of a fully owned Westpac subsidiary, Partnership Pacific Ltd. It shows a smiling and confident executive with the two-inch heading "Change". The advertisement quotes Mr Douglass as saying:
Change is the most challenging word facing banking today. The way of traditional banking - unadventurous, unhurried and resistant to change - has gone. This enables PPL to offer world class advisory, project packaging and assets management.
Mr Speaker, the documents to be tabled will offer a very contrary view. Because I respect your ruling, I will not quote from them. Another advertisement features an enlarged United States banknote which carries a portrait of the first American Secretary of Treasury from 1755 to 1804, Alexander Hamilton. Westpac quotes Hamilton as saying:
They must, of necessity, make every possible effort.
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