Page 610 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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Another issue that Mrs Carnell raised was the details of the VITAB principals, the directors and shareholders, and the bona fides of each of those people. Again, we have heard some explanation from the Minister as to the exact state of affairs and who was a director and who was not at a particular time. I believe that, again, it is a matter the inquiry will look at in some detail. The questions as to the bona fides of the people involved are still there, and the Opposition has quite properly raised questions as to the background of these people who have been involved with VITAB.
An issue that I do not think the Minister has addressed, and it is an issue Mrs Carnell referred to in her remarks, is the question of what sort of company VITAB is - whether it is a public company or a private company. I notice that the Minister in his remarks to the Assembly did not touch on that issue. I will stand corrected if that is not the case, but I do not believe that he did address that issue raised by the Leader of the Opposition. It is a question of detail, but it is a very important question of detail and one that I guess members of this Assembly would have expected the Minister to get right in terms of responses to questions.
Mrs Carnell also raised the issue of the lack of tabling of the directive. The Minister basically referred to the matter as an approval process rather than a directive that needed to be tabled in this Assembly. I think he has addressed that situation satisfactorily up to this point. Mrs Carnell also talked at length about the issue of inducements, and again I think that is an issue that would stand greater exploration by Professor Pearce's inquiry into the ACTTAB-VITAB contract.
I have referred to Mrs Carnell's speech, but certainly those issues were issues that emerged from the dossier of information the Liberals provided me with. My feeling, after reading that material and comparing it with the statements the Minister had made in Hansard, was one of general confusion over particular issues. Ms Follett said earlier that the purpose of the inquiry was to establish the facts of what occurred, and I think that, for most of the matters contained in the dossier of information and which have been dealt with in Hansard, the inquiry is the proper place for those matters to be sorted out.
I have in my notes the comment that, for me, general confusion arose as to who were the VITAB directors and shareholders, what positions various people held and at what times, what companies were involved and at what times. There is a fairly confused history as to what has happened over a short period. There is also confusion about what sort of company VITAB was - public, private, Australian owned, locally based, whatever - and whether there were Asian interests involved, which has been referred to in various documents that have been made available to me also. There is general confusion about the approaches by VITAB to Australian TABs in general and the process of winning or securing the contract - an issue I touched on earlier. There is confusion over the various roles of ACT Treasury, the Government Solicitor's Office and Price Waterhouse in checking bona fides, checking the general legality of the contract and what ACTTAB would be liable for. There is also confusion about the meeting on 6 December, what was discussed, whose views were expressed, and whether there were warning signs at that stage that ACTTAB could be cut out of the VicTAB pool.
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