Page 543 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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MR DE DOMENICO: The third paragraph of Mr Berry's statement, approved by Mr Berry, states:
ACTTAB competed against several other ... TABs to provide the necessary computer facilities and operational support to VITAB and was chosen as the preferred provider ...
Why did Mr Berry not make that statement to the Assembly? Did he know then that the statement was misleading? If so, did he do anything about it? Did he ring the other TABs and ask whether they were invited to tender? What was Mr Berry trying to hide by blacking out two sections of his approval letter, obtained under FOI? At this point, we need to go back to Mr Berry's introduction speech of 20 May 1993, when the Assembly debated and subsequently passed the Betting (Totalizator Administration) (Amendment) Bill 1993. These are the words that will haunt Mr Berry until he turns blue in the face:
This change will strengthen ACTTAB's accountability to the Government and, through it, to the people of the ACT.
In relation to the legislation, he said:
It requires the responsible Minister to table in the Legislative Assembly any directions that are given to the board. This is accountability for you. This provision will ensure that all directions - every direction, every one of them - are open to scrutiny by the elected representatives of the people of the ACT ... This is about accountability.
Why did Mr Berry not table his letter of 22 October 1993 directing ACTTAB to sign the deal with VITAB? The only way the Assembly got to know about the Minister's direction was by obtaining it through FOI, and only after Mr Berry refused to exempt the Opposition from paying for the information because he deemed that the public interest provision had not been proven. Not only did Mr Berry mislead the Assembly by not tabling his direction, Mr Berry also broke the law. I am quite sure that Mr Moore and Ms Szuty were influenced initially to support the decorporatisation of ACTTAB because of the Minister's promise to make sure that "all directions, every one of them, are open to scrutiny by the elected representatives of the people of the ACT. This is about accountability".
Let us see what else the statement said. At the bottom of page 2 it said:
Both the ACT Government Solicitor's Office and ACT Treasury examined and endorsed the agreement.
There is still no mention of Price Waterhouse. Why? After all, they were commissioned to report in September, were they not? Perhaps the most bizarre part of Mr Berry's statement was on page 3, when he said:
A less tangible benefit is the national and international recognition that will flow to ACTTAB and the Territory from the operation.
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