Page 5709 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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given by Mr Dean Hall, Secretary of the ACT Branch of the CFMEU recorded on pages 17 to 28 of the transcript.
They go on to say:
However, numerous statements and inferences made by Mr Hall in his evidence under the cover of privilege and recorded in Hansard are factually incorrect and unsubstantiated and have had a detrimental impact on Manteena’s reputation as a long-standing good corporate organisation.
We have set out in the attached submission a detailed response and correction to these statements and the implications concerning Manteena.
Given the seriousness of these allegations and the possible damage to the reputation of Manteena, which has had long standing, positive and professional relationships with both the ACT Government and the Federal Government over a period of thirty years, we have spoken with the CFMEU representatives … and we request that this response and correction be placed on the record …
I will just give one or two of the claims. This is one of the more outrageous claims:
Manteena Pty Ltd is a classic example of this. We have been on a number of their projects. A number of the subcontractors on their projects have collapsed over the last two to three years, owing in excess of hundreds and thousands of dollars in entitlements to workers. This has been going on for a long time. It is not just in the last few years; it is an ongoing problem.
You would think that if you are making that sort of statement you would have some fact to back it up. Manteena’s response was:
This claim is false.
No trade or subcontractors have collapsed on Manteena sites as alleged.
I will not go through them all, but Manteena does call to account what was said. The problem for the committee now—and we are not set up to be the judge or the jury—is that when people use our committees in this way it does reflect on us. We have an obligation to make sure that if people like Mr Dean Hall of the CFMEU are going to present information to the committee and it is called into account then we do actually have a process.
Mr Speaker, given that you will be there at admin and procedures, it is certainly something that I am sure you are aware of and would have concerns about. Given that we are 20-odd years into the life of the Assembly, perhaps it is time that we had some procedures in place where we can resolve the “he said, she said” elements here. But to use the Assembly and to then go on ABC radio the next morning and use that as a basis for continuing the attack, when clearly these issues are either made up, falsified, or just illusionary, is not acceptable.
Moving through the report, one of the complaints was about the conflicting thresholds. Some are set at $20,000, for instance, and others are set at $25,000. The threshold is
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