Page 641 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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If you required Mr Dowd to sign a statutory declaration, and we assume that Mr Dowd is a director of VITAB - we believe that, let us say - have you asked Mr Kolomanski and Mr McMahon or any of the directors, if there are any, of Oak Ltd who are also directors of VITAB to sign a statutory declaration that they had nothing to do with Mr Tripp or Numbawan? Why did you ask Mr Dowd to sign a statutory declaration? We did not ask for that. What about the other directors? We would like your answer to that one.
I turn to the other area of the bona fides. Minister, the Liberal Party, taking into account privacy provisions and everything else that was mentioned by everybody else in this house, did a check, although not a proper check because of our limited resources. If we had more resources we probably would be able to find out more information than we have. You acknowledge that Mr Peter Bartholomew was here perhaps for only one meeting. It does not matter whether he was here for one meeting or for 101 meetings. The fact that Mr Bartholomew was involved at all in negotiating this contract on behalf of VITAB - hopefully he was not working on behalf of the ACT Government - would have, to me, rung alarm bells. Who is Mr Bartholomew? We know who Mr Bartholomew is. Mr Bartholomew has been convicted twice, once in 1981 for conducting a place used for gaming, and once in 1982 for using premises for betting.
In response to that you presented a letter dated 12 April, today's date, about Mr Bartholomew from the ACT Magistrates Court which said that the ACT Magistrates Court had no record of Mr Bartholomew. That is fine. We could have told you that. Why did you not write to the Victoria Police? From 1991 on we have nothing on Mr Bartholomew. The Victoria Police would have told you that in 1981 he was convicted of conducting a place used for gaming. The Victoria Police would also have told you that in 1982 he was convicted of using premises for betting.
Mrs Carnell: It was on television.
MR DE DOMENICO: If you had watched television you would have known that. Had you read the Sydney Morning Herald you would have known that, because they checked him out as well. Mr Stevenson made a salient point. Had we not done checks in the casino situation we could have ended up with anyone, for heaven's sake. Here we are doing a deal, negotiating a contract involving public money, with a person who has been convicted twice of SP bookmaking. Does that not ring alarm bells to you?
I want to talk now about Mr McMahon and another letter that Mr Berry tabled. Had Mr Berry looked deeply into the situation he would have known that Mr McMahon was charged in 1988 with "suffer betting" and "keep control of premises for the use of betting". Mr Berry, you did not know that Mr McMahon was not convicted of that until 17 March, because today you tabled a letter dated 17 March. Why did you sign a contract, and let Mr McMahon sign a contract, in October last year when you did not know until 17 March that he has never been convicted? You would have known that he had been charged because he was charged in 1988.
Mr Berry: You are not allowed to hang them until they are convicted, Tony.
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