Page 1992 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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on 18 January 1994, and it was on 21 January 1994 that Mr Hooke, the chief executive officer of VicTAB, first contacted Mr Neck and indicated that his board intended to terminate the link between ACTTAB and VicTAB.
Subsequent sections of the report deal with "Who is VITAB?" and outline details of the backgrounds of the persons involved. Professor Pearce reached extensive conclusions about the checking of VITAB directors and shareholders. Five pages in all in the report cover that particular issue. He comes to two findings on page 30 of the report - two findings that the Chief Minister quoted in her remarks. They are:
. that there was a failure to check the backgrounds of the persons who were proposed to be the directors of VITAB;
. the responsibility for that failure must be assumed by ACTTAB.
"ACTTAB as a statutory authority" is discussed in the section that follows, where Professor Pearce outlines what to him seems like a systemic problem. It is taken up in Professor Pearce's recommendations and conclusions at the end of the report. He said:
What is revealed here is a systemic problem. There are matters that a department will have to perform and others that can be left to the statutory authority. But it must be clear to both parties what those respective functions are. It seems to me that when an authority is established, there should be guidelines put in place that indicate where the respective responsibilities lie. Where a matter of a significant nature such as the contract in this case arises, the department and the authority need to settle at the outset what functions they are to perform. It is not wise for the Minister to be used as some sort of liaison officer or conduit as was done in this case. If the parties here had spoken to each other early in the piece, many of the subsequent difficulties could have been avoided.
Inducements are discussed in Professor Pearce's report in a number of instances. He said:
Assurances were given by VITAB that it was not their intention to attract Australian punters but they were going to concentrate on the Asian and Pacific markets. When this question was raised in the Legislative Assembly VITAB wrote to ACTTAB reasserting that it had not and did not intend to try to induce Australian punters to switch their allegiance to VITAB. This letter is recognisably unenforceable in legal terms and it led to questions being asked in the Legislative Assembly whether consideration had been given to including a no inducements clause in the contract. It would appear that if there had been consideration given to the inclusion of such a clause it was quickly forgotten.
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