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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4798 ..

MRS CARNELL: I certainly will be happy to speak later, but I think a number of issues that Mr Berry brought up need to be addressed right now, particularly when a member of this Assembly publicly calls for the sacking of a public servant in what could only be described as a kangaroo court approach by Mr Berry. I do not think that is an appropriate way to go. Even in the throes of the VITAB debates back in 1993-94 I do not believe that this side of the house ever suggested that a public servant should be sacked. I do not believe that is an appropriate approach.

I would like to use this opportunity to address the issues Mr Berry brought up. We can certainly discuss the whole report again, hopefully tomorrow. I would like to deal very quickly with Mr Berry's view that there was something similar between the second part of Mr Burbidge's report and the first part - that is, between the VITAB information and the information with regard to incentives that were paid by the Racing Club to two large punters. Those incentives obviously were paid. There is no doubt about that. They came about as a result of sports betting legislation that was passed under the previous Government in 1994. I need to make clear what Mr Burbidge said about the two deals. When Mr Burbidge spoke about the incentive payments paid to two punters in the ACT - no offshore connections - he said, on page 137:

... I see no obvious illegality in the practice.

With regard to VITAB, Mr Burbidge said that it was fraud; that it was maladministration. He said that there should be referrals to the Federal Police, to the DPP. On one side we have something with no obvious illegality and about which Mr Burbidge said that he does not believe that the matters need particular further investigation. These sorts of incentive payments to punters are believed to be common practice. On the other side you have a tax minimisation offshore betting deal that is fraud, as against something that shows no obvious signs of illegality and is common practice. On one side you have a deal with VITAB that cost the ACT taxpayer $5.3m, and on the other side you have incentives paid by the Racing Club that have not cost the ACT taxpayer one dollar. On one side we have fraud and a $5.3m cost to the taxpayer. On the other side we have no illegality and no cost at all to the taxpayer. How Mr Berry can go down the path of suggesting that these were similar deals is an absolute mystery to me.

You can keep going. The next thing is the action that was taken. Mr Berry went through question time after question time in this place when we asked why the people shown in the corporate records, in Vanuatu, as the shareholders of VITAB were not the same as the people who appeared to own VITAB here and why various things happened. Question after question was raised, not just by us but by people who knew something about the racing industry. What did Mr Berry say? Again, question time after question time over months, Mr Berry said that it was money for jam; that there was nothing wrong with the deal. He said that he took personal responsibility for signing off the arrangements that were entered into. I think he said he took personal responsibility for making sure the deal was safe to the Territory.

In fact, even when Mr Berry was relieved of his ministry, if you remember - and I am sure Mr Moore and others who were here do - he said that it was nothing at all to do with the VITAB deal. He said that that was not the reason that he was removed, and it was not.

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