The ACTTAB said it thought is was the job of ACT Government officials to do probity check on the Vitab proponents and assumed they were doing them, the Vitab inquiry heard yesterday.
The day before departmental and ministerial officers told the inquiry they thought the probity checks were the job of ACTTAB and assumed ACTTAB was doing them.
Professor Pearce is inquiring into the contract with the Vanuatu-based Vitab and ACTTAB under which ACTTAB gave computer access to the multi-state super-pool and other services in return for a percentage of turnover, enabling Vitab to run phone and other betting on Australian races. He is also inquiring into why the Victorian TAB terminated it super-pool arrangements with the ACT.
The contract led to a successful Assembly no-confidence motion against Sports Minister Wayne Berry last month causing him to resign.
The chief executive of the ACTTAB, Philip Neck, told the inquiry the fact that former Prime Minister Bob Hawke was involved with the Vitab proposal ruled out the possibility they were dealing with a fly-by-night operation.
Given Mr Hawke’s gambling interests, contacts with South-East Asia and links with a plan to put race tracks in China meant there were possibilities for ACTTAB to go from the smallest to the largest TAB in Australia and earn substantial returns for the ACT Government.
The Asian market was the only way to go given the competition for the leisure dollar in Australia.
Both he and ACTTAB board chairman Athol Williams said that Peter Bartholomew _ named in the Assembly as having links with illegal SP book-making _ had played no meaningful role in a meeting at ACTTAB headquarters in July 1993 with Mr Hawke and other Vitab principals.
Mr Willams said Mr Hawke had arrived with an entourage. Of Mr Bartholomew he said: “”perhaps he was a bodyguard; perhaps he was a chauffer.”
Mr Neck said he had sat in a corner and had not taken a noticeable part.
Mr Williams said there had been a degree of caution, “”that’s why we went to the Minister’s office the very next day.”
After a meeting with the Minister, departmental and TAB officials he had been left with the impression that probity checks would be done in a similar way as with the casino principals.
“”I took it that the Minister and departmental officers would follow the lines they followed with the casino,” he said.
He said he thought it would be done by departmental officers on the direction of the minister.
Mr Neck cited an implementation schedule drawn up at the meeting with the Minister which had the Attorney-General’s department doing checks.
When asked by Professor Peace about an annotation in his hand-writing, “”ACTTAB to do probity checks” he said that his view of probity checks was company searches, capital structure and the like and ACTTAB’s solicitors were doing that, but police checks were to be done by Attorney-General’s. ACTTAB was not in a position to do those checks and did not know how to do them.
ACTTAB was looking to the Minister to set up the appropriate investigation process, like the casino.
When the Minister gave approval for the deal, ACTTAB signed thinking that those checks had been done.
On Tuesday the department said it thought it was up to ACTTAB to do the probity checks.
But asked hypothetically by Professor Pearce whether a department should stop a statutory authority from dealing with thoroughly unsavoury people, the department’s Greg Fraser said yes.
Professor Pearce: How would you know they were unsavoury if the attitude was that that would be left to ACTTAB?
Mr Fraser: ACTTAB was the business operator it was up to them to satisfy themselves who they were dealing with.
Mr Fraser agreed also that a Minister receiving a recommendation paper like the one he did would be entitled to assume that any issues he may have raised earlier, such as a careful check on the background of the proponents, had been satisfied. But he thought that if the Minister was in any doubt he would raise questions.
Mr Neck said yesterday he had agreed to a confidentiality agreement with Vitab on the day he had received it without seeking legal advice because the competitive environment required him to act quickly and show a positive interest.
The inquiry has now gone into in camera hearings to deal with commercial-in-confidence matters.