Page 535 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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The very next day he told the Assembly, with more than a little pride in his voice:
There is a lot of jealousy out there about this good deal that the ACT has done. The money is going to be in the bag in the ACT. Other places, other States, had the opportunity to look at this Vanuatu deal and the ACT got the jump on them. Of course, there is a lot of jealousy about this issue, but the ACT has the money in the bag and I expect that some people are stinging.
That is at page 482 of Hansard. Mr Berry misled the Assembly on every one of these occasions. ACTTAB's only competition for a deal with VITAB was itself. It competed with itself. And it was not hard to check. We wrote to every other Australian TAB and asked them a fairly simple question. We asked them whether they had either been approached by VITAB or submitted a proposal to VITAB. With the exception of Queensland, no other TAB in Australia was even approached.
The Queensland TAB told VITAB, and I quote from the letter we got back from them:
... due to legislative restraints we were not in a position to consider offshore links with other organisations.
QTAB did not submit a proposal and sent VITAB packing. Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table copies of the letters we received from TABs around Australia, which will show categorically that the Minister misled this Assembly.
Leave granted.
MRS CARNELL: It is interesting to note that the only two States or Territories that were approached by VITAB were the two with Labor governments. If the Opposition could so easily check this fact, then surely the Minister should have known all along that his TAB was out there all on its own. The fact is that ACTTAB was singled out and targeted by a group of very smart operators. What of the envy that Mr Berry claims existed amongst other TABs? It was not envy but widespread concern about the implications of the VITAB deal for Australian TABs and the racing industry.
But this Minister did not stop trying to snow the Assembly then. I come back to his well-worn statement that the ACT's deal with VITAB was safe because it was thoroughly checked by Treasury and the Law Office. On 1 March, amongst many other times, Mr Berry told the Assembly:
... it has been checked out here in the ACT by Treasury and by the Law Office, and already we are receiving the benefits.
All that the Law Office was asked to do was to satisfy itself about the appropriateness of the contract as a legal document. Mr Berry tried to imply that the deal itself was approved by the Government Solicitor. All that the Treasury was asked to do was to ensure that the contract did not leave the ACT Government financially exposed. Neither government agency was asked to examine the implications of the deal itself or the bona fides of the parties involved.
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