Page 3320 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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… the club’s management committee or board does not, for any reason, have complete control over the club’s business or operations, or a significant aspect of the club’s business or operations …
It goes on to say that licences can be lost where they continue “not to do anything that would, if the licensee were applying for a gaming machine licence, cause the licensee to be refused the licence”. The club boards must have complete control.
If we look at the time line, we see “Labor Club decides to sell”. These are from the headlines. They say “Labor Club decides to sell assets to the Tradies Club”—26 June. There is “Federal executive intervenes to cancel ACT Labor annual general meeting”—19 July 2009. There is “National Executive intervenes to stop the sale of clubs”—25 July. There is “Labor Club board defies national order”—30 July. There is “Sale of Labor Club stopped”—1 August 2009. There is “Revelations of possible legal breaches in preceding actions revealed”—15 August.
And let us look at the issue of control. Let us look at just what has been reported in the Canberra Times and in the media generally. On 25 July the Weekend Australian said:
The national executive has intervened to stall the sale of four profitable—
highly profitable—
Labor clubs.
Let me quote again:
National executive sources told the Weekend Australian there could be full national intervention in the ACT branch if it continued to refuse to provide information about how it valued the four Canberra Labor clubs and their rivers of poker machine revenue and what it intended to do with the proceeds of the sale.
It goes on:
Acting Canberra Labor Party secretary Ted Quinlan has warned it could take months to sell the party’s licensed clubs, with “all options … on the table following federal intervention”.
On 29 July the Canberra Times said:
Intervention by Labor’s national executive stalled the process.
There is “Local sources have described the intervention as a grubby cash grab”. Let me quote again:
ACT Labor’s administration committee and the board of the Canberra Labor clubs met last night to discuss the sale …
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