Page 2086 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2017
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The deputy CFO responded:
Yes, and it does.
Then I said:
This response and the subsequent comment by Mr Dawes on page 22 imply that the Glebe Park land acquisition received prior board approval, when, on the basis of the Auditor-General’s report, it appears that that was not the case.
As far as I can tell, the situation is that the government put in place clear mandatory directions on approvals that the LDA had to have before it bought land but the LDA then largely ignored this and came up with—I am not sure if it is—its own approach or not even an approach. The Auditor-General’s report clearly said the LDA’s approach was “incorrect”. The Auditor-General’s report covered land acquisitions, and the policy directions required reporting on all acquisitions, not just strategic acquisitions.
I am going to do some quoting from the transcript of this hearing. I started off by saying:
Can I draw your attention to page 13 of your report, which states that under the framework the details of all acquisitions completed during a financial year must be included in the LDA’s annual report. Why do we only have two listed here, at Stromlo? To start with, it is pretty meaningless. I do not think you bought Mount Stromlo. The ANU, I believe, is still in operation there. Are you saying that there were only two land acquisitions in that year? I do not think you could say that “Stromlo” is a useful description of them.
Mr Gordon said:
Yes, I agree that description is relating to the districts and where the purchases were made. That is the relationship given in the annual report. We can provide the specifics if you like.
I said:
Yes, please. That is all the land acquisitions, you believe?
Mr Gordon replied:
Yes.
We went on and we had Mr Dawes say:
With some of the acquisitions in that particular year, with the settlement dates, some go to the asset register in a different way. If you want specifics, our CFO is here to answer some of those questions.
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