Former ALP fund-raiser Charles Wright had been proposed as a founding major shareholder of the holding company of Vitab in July 1993, according to a letter to the ACTTAB at the time obtained yesterday. This is contrary to government efforts to dissociate Vitab and Mr Wright. Last year, Mr Wright’s appointment as ACT Tourism Commissioner was attacked by the Opposition because he had been named in the WA Inc Royal Commission report as having passed $80,000 in raised funds to the secretary of former WA Premier Brian Burke and because he had been a director of a company that had gone broke leaving staff unpaid.
When the Vitab affair started to come under fire, informed sources say that Mr Wright was asked to take a back seat and not have a formal role because of the earlier bad publicity surrounding him.
The Vanuatu-based Vitab signed an agreement with ACTTAB last year under which it would get access to the ACT betting pool which in turn was pooled with Victoria. It resulted in Victoria pulling the pin on the ACT, sending ACT dividends into chaos
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