Page 1831 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 June 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
appoint people who know what they are talking about when you are running an $85m enterprise". That is what it means to the people of the ACT. Now you can appoint anybody you like. It has nothing to do with the Corporations Act any more; you can appoint anybody you like and therefore in come those people that Mr Berry is very friendly with and perhaps wants to appoint.
Let me also say, Mr Berry, that, should we happen to be unsuccessful in our move to refer this Bill to a committee, we will be moving an amendment to suggest that any appointments made by you to this board of the TAB, or as chief executive, ought to be disallowable by this Assembly. To be quite frank with you, Mr Berry, we do not trust your judgment in the way you appoint people. It is not only just us, because I can - - -
Mr Berry: Not even to my personal staff, by the sound of it.
MR DE DOMENICO: No, that is right. I can state what the Canberra Times said in its editorial on 8 January. It said:
One could, therefore, only speculate as to Mr Berry's real motives. As a corporation, appointments to the board and the executive must be made on business merit. If it were a statutory authority Mr Berry would have a wider class of people to choose from - namely anyone. Once before, Mr Berry made an appointment to a body that caused considerable unease among the professionals involved.
I am sure that Mrs Carnell will recall that. It was an appointment to the Pharmacists Board. With that track record, people in the racing industry are rightly fearful of appointments Mr Berry might make to a TAB constituted as a statutory authority. Not only people in the racing industry are fearful, Mr Berry, I am suggesting. People who happen to run TABs throughout the suburbs in the ACT are also. Let me also tell you, in case you have not spoken to them, that they also are against what you are trying to do. It is not only for those reasons that we are opposing this Bill.
Let us have a look at some of the other matters, Madam Speaker. Apparently it has been suggested that ACTTAB Ltd be converted - God help us - not back to its usual statutory authority structure but to a corporate sole structure without a board, responsible directly to a Minister and subject to the Public Service Act.
Mr Berry: Who suggested that?
MR DE DOMENICO: Who suggested that? I am glad that you asked that question. Let me refer to another "Cabinet in Confidence" document, Mr Berry. I will not mention the name of the person who suggested that, but there it is.
Ms Follett: It is not quality stuff.
MR DE DOMENICO: It is quality stuff, because they are your own documents, Ms Follett.
Mr Berry: We might have them tabled.
MR DE DOMENICO: You can have them tabled. I was expecting that anyway.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .