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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4826 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

He went on to say later in the interview:

... inducements, which were the root cause of all the difficulties in relation to VITAB, occurred under the Carnell government and again put at risk our link with the pool in Victoria.

Mr Speaker, inducements were being offered while Mr Berry was the Minister. It does not matter whether he did or did not know about them. Now he is saying that he did know about them, when he said this morning, "Yes, I know that; I know that". It is very interesting. They were occurring, and they were occurring around Australia, and according to Mr Burbidge's report they were not illegal. So Mr Berry's claims, both on radio and in this house, were wrong.

What were the inducements, and why were they being offered? I am informed that typically the inducements were in the form of paying for air fares, accommodation, taxi fares or whatever was needed to have a major punter come to Canberra racecourse and bet through the facilities there rather than go elsewhere. They were offered, I am advised, because it was common practice around Australia, and the Racing Club was simply keeping up with its competitors. Is it not interesting that Mr Burbidge found exactly the same thing? Mr Berry must now accept that under his Government and, more importantly, during the time that he was the responsible Minister this practice was occurring.

Let us look at what I did as Chief Minister when I was advised of the practice. I commissioned an independent report, and when the report was received I wrote to the racing codes and requested that the practice cease. And I am advised that the practice has stopped. I took action before this became a public issue, not after it became a public issue, not after we had had months of questions in question time. I took action before this matter became public. In other words, I acted as any responsible Minister should. I took the warnings seriously, acted upon them and took decisive action. What did Mr Berry do when he was Minister and inducements were being offered? Obviously, he did nothing. Compare his approach with that taken by me.

Mr Speaker, I want to come back to what Mr Berry said on radio this morning, because it seriously concerns me, and it should be a worry to every member of the Assembly. Mr Berry said that the root cause of all the difficulties with VITAB was inducements. Wrong, Mr Speaker. The root cause which he was warned about was the fact that the ownership of VITAB was different from what he was claiming. The root cause was the fact that Mr Berry refused to investigate my claims in 1993 and 1994 that VITAB may have been a front for an SP operation involving two notorious individuals - Peter Bartholomew and Alan Tripp.

I can well remember Mr Berry telling me that Mr Bartholomew had only a peripheral involvement in VITAB. If Mr Berry thinks inducements were the biggest problem, then it is no wonder that he failed to come to grips with the crisis that we warned him about during 1994. Mr Speaker, if Mr Berry had even once taken my warnings and those of the Opposition seriously, if he had bothered to ensure that the probity and shadowy corporate structure of VITAB were properly checked, then we would not be here today with a $5.3m disaster.

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