Page 4914 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 November 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
These are all structures within the CFMEU, the Tradies and the Labor Club. It just so happens that the Labor Party and their fellow travellers have made the most of the corporate rules and regulations in Australia. They have companies and entities everywhere, and I think many of them are paying handsome directors’ fees as well.
The incestuous rorts in Canberra are out of control. The Canberra Liberals are proud to call them out. It is our duty to do that. We would be negligent if we had all the information that we have and we did not bring it to the Assembly’s attention. When you have $700,000 worth of rent being gifted, in effect, to the Tradies, it is up to us to call it out, because those opposite certainly are not. Recommendation 38 of this week’s report from the Select Committee on an Integrity Commission stated:
The Committee recommends that an … Anti-Corruption and Integrity Commission have the power to make findings of fact that corruption has occurred and that such a finding is not to be taken as a finding of guilt.
We have a gaping hole in our current system. We have the police, we have the standards commissioner, we have an Auditor-General, but there is a gaping hole, and that is why we need an ICAC. But when we do get an ICAC, if indeed those opposite ever come to the party, we hope that it will be able to determine corruption without having to prove it to a criminal standard, because, as we well know, there are so many masters of corporate structures, so many masters of wheeling and dealing, that they can get around so many of the criminal laws. An earlier paragraph in that same report states:
… an anti-corruption body (and its investigation process) does not have the accompanying requirements and safeguards of the judicial process. Accordingly, it can only make findings, however these findings are not findings of criminal guilt but findings of fact.
Madam Speaker, what I have presented today is fact. We do know that in 2010 the government were in direct negotiations with the Tradies. We do know that in 2012 they opened up an expression of interest; 20 people expressed an interest but only two ended up looking at that prime site.
We do know that they applied for a deconcessionalisation of the main site before they had even won that expression of interest. We do know that on 20 December 2012 the government awarded the Tradies the contract for the car park. We do know that in February 2013 Simon Corbell came into this place and said that the Tradies could deconcessionalise their site. And we do know that in April 2013 the government got a valuation done for two scenarios, and they paid for vacant possession but then they gave them 42 months. And what is more, that valuation seems to be 17 months out of date. It was done in April 2013 and the contract was exchanged in December 2014.
The fact is that the Labor Party has a form of control over the Labor Club, and the subsidiary, 2,200 Nominees Pty Ltd, are a property developer. They did not pay a lease variation charge for their 36-apartment development. It is a fact that the Labor Club have more than 10 per cent of Canberra’s poker machines and they are also the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video