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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4749 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I said that I would be brief, and I think I have been. I will quickly refer to the second half of the inquiry. I have not yet had time to go through it thoroughly; but I will make a couple of observations. I will say that I was a little bit disappointed that the second half of the inquiry ran out of time. However, Mr Burbidge did find that two punters were paid incentives in excess of $200,000 and that both the former chief executive of the Racing Club, Mr Ray Alexander, and, more importantly, the chief executive of ACTTAB, Mr Roger Smeed, knew of the incentives.

Mr Burbidge says that he did not think it appropriate, nor did he have sufficient time, to address the question of whether the practice of offering incentives was illegal. Without having time to go back and look at what I said in the Assembly on the night of the debate, Mr Speaker, I do not know whether I argued that the practice was illegal. What I did argue was whether it was proper or not, given the risk to ACTTAB with the link with Victoria. Mr Speaker, it is unfortunate that Mr Burbidge did not perhaps have the time to go into this second part, because I believe that the questions that were asked were certainly worth answering to a greater degree. I will be giving a great deal of thought to how I respond to this section.

I will quickly quote from paragraph 369, on the role of Mr Smeed in this issue. Mr Burbidge says:

It is clear that Mr Smeed at the instruction of the punters co-operated in the payment of rebates by the Club. That co-operation was facilitative. At the request of the punters turnover figures were supplied to the club to enable the rebate payable to be calculated.

So, Mr Speaker, just on that paragraph alone I feel vindicated, in that ACTTAB did know about the operation and was involved. However, as Mr Burbidge says, when the Chief Minister did write to the Racing Club earlier this year, the system was put to an end. How very pleasing that is, Mr Speaker, because what we did was save the Racing Club $200,000, and I believe that turnover has not changed. Mr Speaker, finally I believe that, on the whole, this is an important report. I trust that all members of the Assembly will read it carefully and take heed. Let us hope that it does not happen again.

Debate (on motion by Ms McRae) adjourned.

Bill as a whole

Debate resumed.

MR SPEAKER: The question is: That Mr Osborne's amendment to omit Part IV, which includes clauses 23 to 29, be agreed to.

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