Page 597 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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a termination was going to take place. Mr Berry seems to take the view that it is all cut and dried and finished. Ms Follett has taken the view that, no, they have only given notice. I think it demonstrates quite vividly the situation opposite on the Government benches in relation to this matter. They are all over the shop.
I find it strange that Mr Berry should also, on the same page, question VicTAB's "about face" - I am quoting him - "and in the same way, New South Wales' unwillingness to accept VITAB into a pooling arrangement". He asks whether this could have been foreseen and says that these two occurrences were unpredictable. I think in terms of VicTAB he answered his own question when, at page 15 of the same document, he referred to the concern of the Victorians "that VITAB may poach clients from VicTAB by offering inducements". It seems strange that within a document of 19 pages we can have those two contradictions. Mr Berry went on to try to defend some of his positions. I was interested in the way that he excused VITAB for being tardy in notifying Mr Dowd's appointment to the registrar in Vanuatu. This is a strange thing. This is very peculiar. In this country this would be looked upon with some concern, but apparently it is just a matter of being tardy over there.
At the bottom of the same page, page 7, he again acknowledges that it is unsatisfactory that ACTTAB had not undertaken checks on these people prior to the contract being signed on 22 October 1993. However, all is well, because the AFP advised ACTTAB's solicitors on 17 March the following year that the people concerned were not recorded. This was after the contract had been signed. I am sorry, Mr Berry; but, again, it does not give us much faith and confidence. I must say, however, that your solicitors or ACTTAB's solicitors were very much on the ball, because on 21 January - this was before the AFP advised of the situation in relation to Kolomanski and McMahon - when VITAB submitted a request for the approval of five new shareholders, at least the solicitors got onto it fairly quickly; but that does not give us any faith that you or your officers necessarily knew what you were doing.
You went on at page 9 to argue that you did not mislead the Assembly on this strong competition for the VITAB contract. There was no strong competition. Queensland expressed an interest but found that they could not really - - -
Mr De Domenico: Legally they could not.
MR CORNWELL: Exactly. Thank you, Mr De Domenico. Legally they could not. Throughout this list of events that we have documented, time and again you state to the Assembly the strong competition for the contract from TABs - plural - throughout Australia. You seem to have forgotten that one swallow does not make a summer, and presumably one passing interest by one TAB does not indicate strong competition.
Mr De Domenico: Mr Berry swallowed the bait, though, hook, line and sinker.
MR CORNWELL: Indeed. I think the problem is, Mr De Domenico - I agree with my colleague Mr Kaine on this - that it was not necessarily deliberate on Mr Berry's part, but it most certainly was reckless. Mr Berry accuses us of attacking him. He accuses us of trying to wreck these agreements. In fact, at one point here he made a statement to the effect that he has answered all our questions. The simple fact is, and looking through the
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