Page 587 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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4. ACT/TAB to guarantee settlement to VicTAB.
5. VITAB will not directly solicit betting investments from existing VicTAB or ACT/TAB customers. VITAB cannot guarantee that existing customers will not bet with VITAB, for reasons stated in Item 2.
6. VicTAB must not act to disadvantage VITAB in relation to competing with the Vanuatu VicTAB agency.
7. VITAB is prepared to authorise ACTTAB to disclose certain information to VicTAB, but VicTAB must first acknowledge -
and so on. This explains a lot of the issues which, of course, were discussed in the lead-up to the development of the contract. You will also appreciate that a further letter was written by VITAB in relation to inducements - and I think their position is pretty clear - subsequent to that one.
I think that statutory declaration in relation to that key meeting clarifies the position of ACTTAB and VicTAB at that point. Why was it then that, despite all of these discussions and the subsequent public announcement of the agreement in early November, VicTAB decided to terminate the link with ACTTAB at the end of January 1994 in contravention of the agreement reached in September 1993? Do the Liberals know?
Under the circumstances, could VicTAB's total about-face have been foreseen? I do not think it could have been. Secondly, the draft VITAB agreement was developed on ACTTAB's behalf by the legal firm Macphillamy Cummins and Gibson, which is a member firm of the Australian Legal Group and which is recognised nationally for its expertise in commercial law. Of course, the agreement was scrutinised and further refined by the ACT Government Solicitor's Office and also reflected advice from ACT Treasury. At no time did any of these agencies raise concerns about the financial or commercial security of the agreement for the Territory.
Madam Speaker, members of this Assembly have raised a number of specific concerns about the agreement and comments I made in relation to it. I see these as including the status of directors and shareholders of VITAB and in particular Oak Ltd. I referred to that a little earlier and I think that matter has - - -
Mrs Carnell: Has it?
MR BERRY: I have referred to Mr Dowd's position as a director. Of course, the other issues are the bona fides of the directors and shareholders of VITAB, whether ACTTAB was in competition with other TABs for the VITAB agreement, the issue of inducements, the alleged involvement of Mr Bartholomew and in turn his relationship with Mr Tripp, and in particular the reasons for commenting on the safety and benefits of the agreement with VITAB following the notice of termination by VicTAB. I will address each one of those six matters in turn.
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