Page 172 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 December 2016
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Mr Coe then asked Ms Cicolini, the deputy CFO, with regard to the acquisitions:
Therefore, surely everything under $5 million has to go before the LDA board?
That is at page 21. Ms Cicolini says:
Yes, and it does.
This is contrary to the findings of the Auditor-General in regards to all four of the acquisitions discussed in her report. Again, in the response to questioning by Mr Coe, Mr Dawes repeats Ms Cicolini’s assertion that “the board signs off on all of these”. That is on page 2. This relates to land acquisitions. It is an explicit reference to the Glebe Park land. But the Auditor-General states on page 22 of her report:
The land acquisitions considered as part of the audit were not approved by the Land Development Agency Board. This represents non‐compliance with the requirements of Planning and Development (Land Acquisition Policy Framework) Direction 2014 (No 1) (Land Acquisition Policy Framework) (Notifiable Instrument ‐ NI2014‐264)—
I note that Mr Barr referenced this in his comments—
which came into effect in June 2014, which requires land acquisitions up to $5 million to be approved by the Board.
We have an issue here: one thing has been said to the planning committee and another thing seems to be what actually happened. That was my question yesterday. I am still wondering what actually is the situation here. The Auditor-General clearly states her conclusion about the lack of transparency, accountability and rigour for the process used in acquiring the three sites and the two associated businesses considered in the audit.
I also asked about the one formal evaluation. Yesterday I was told I should refer to the public record. I have and there was only one formal evaluation provided. The discussion paper that provided the informal valuation was deliberately altered to appear as a formal evaluation. I assume that that is the thing that Mr Coe refers to in his statement. The situation is, to put it mildly, unsatisfactory.
While the Auditor-General’s findings do not point to any explicit corruption, they do suggest a culture of cosy relationships and an environment that lacks transparency at the least. It is clear from the Auditor-General’s report that the LDA has gained too much power and has lost touch with the community. This is something that needs to be addressed.
Obviously I am pleased that the Minister for Economic Development will tomorrow outline the restructure of the LDA. I look forward to seeing how the restructure will enable future transactions to be accountable and transparent. Given that what he has talked about so far is just separating greenfields versus infill, I do not know how these things are going to get addressed. I guess that I, like everyone else, will wait in
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