The ACT Opposition questioned yesterday whether former Prime Minister Bob Hawke was to get a future shareholding in Vitab for his role in the launch of the ACTTAB-Vitab deal.
The Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, asked, “”Was he brought in to impress the socks off the ACTTAB Board?”
She was speaking at an inquiry by Professor Pearce 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.
“”Who better than a former Labor Prime Minister” to persuade the board and the Labor ACT Government she asked.
If Mr Hawke had said he was a shareholder, why wasn’t it checked out? Why was Hawke at the official launch on November 8 last year if not as a shareholder? Why did he allow himself to be reported as being a shareholder? Was the publicity his contribution for his shareholding?
Asked by Professor Pearce how could Mr Hawke’s position be checked out, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tony de Domenico, said he would telephone him and ask him precisely what was his role. Given the Government was from the same party that should not have been difficult.
He would have gone to his public servants and said, “”This is a gaming contract. What did we do with the casino. We should do the same thing with this.”
Ms Carnell said alarm bells should have rung. Why was the ACT, a small player being approached when most of the innovative, off-shore developments were being done by NSW and Victoria? She questioned why other TABs had not been queried and the lack of checking of Vitab associate Peter Bartholomew (who was named in the Assembly as having links with SP book-making).
The Government could have found out that Peter Bartholomew had approached Queensland on behalf of Vitab and could have checked out the media reports of Mr Bartholomew and Mr Hawke linked in a deal with a building in Melbourne.
The Liberal Party, with one researcher, managed to do checks the government with all its resources had not done. Her charitable conclusion was that the ACT Government had a total lack of understanding of what it was doing.
The department should have made sure it knew all about Vitab and it was inappropriate for it to distance itself from a major issue in the portfolio.
The former Minister for Sport, Wayne Berry, said he had asked for checks from ACTTAB and the department and thought they would co-operate on that. he had told them he wanted the agreement to be squeaky clean, especially as Mr Hawke was involved. When they had come back with the recommendation to go ahead, he had assumed all the checks he had asked for had been done.
Asked by Professor Pearce whether a Minister should take responsibility for a grievous error of a statutory authority about which he knew nothing, Mr Berry said, “”One does in political life. And I felt the sting of that. Yes you take responsibility at the end of the day.”
The checks were not somethinghe would do himself. He had hand the ACTTAB proposal to the department to check out.
He expected ACTTAB and the departmental head Jeff Townsend would understand their responsibilities.
On receiving the departmental recommendation to approve the deal, no alarm bells had rung because of on absence of a reference to probity checks because he had no reason to believe the checks he had asked for had not been carried out.
On the super-pool arrangement, Mr Berry said everyone felt relaxed about it. In hindsight the contract drawn up by ACTTAB solicitors had been defective because it had given Vitab and out if access to the pool was cut, but gave no out for ACTTAB.
Ms Carnell said ACTTAB’s computers were old technology and there would be a difficulty in establishing a super-pool link with NSW which had newer technology.
The hearing resumes tomorrow (WED). Mr Hawke will give evidence on Friday.