Further corrections to accounts of the Brown and Hatton piggery, half owned by the family of the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, have changed for the second time the status of money due to a company owned by the former Minister for Tourism, John Brown for goodwill.
The money was first stated as a straight debt of $4 million. It was then changed to shareholders’ equity and in publicly available accounts lodged with the Australian Securities Commission last week it was taken out of the accounts altogether and referred to in a note on the accounts. The note said Brown and Hatton Group Pty Ltd had a potential liability of $4m associated with the purchase of the pig business and naming rights. It called it contingent liability to be paid if the directors’ “”so determine and if the company make sufficient profits and has sufficient funds available to pay” it.
The Brown and Hatton Groups has entered a $80 million joint venture with the Danish company Danpork.
One could conclude from the accounts that there is a hovering $4 million which one day might be paid to Mr Brown if the Danish joint venture is successful.
The latest corrections were unsigned, undated and unaudited.
Mr Keating is not a director of the company as is not in any way responsible for its accounts.
A statement tabled in the Senate yesterday by the Opposition spokesman on the arts, Senator Michael Baume, said that another company in the group, Olympia Refrigeration Sales Pty Ltd, had overstated its financial strength by $800,000. It had lodged corrected accounts for the 1989-90 financial year last week. These put shareholders’ equity at negative $634,828 whereas the earlier version had them at plus $167,582.
The accounts of Mr Keating’s half-owned company Euphron Pty Ltd show that his shareholders’ equity has increased $3.8 million.
In the Senate last week, Senator Baume said that Mr Keating must either acknowledge he has made a paper fortune or acknowledge that the company’s accounts are wrong.
Yesterday, Senator Baume asked about what he said was a failure by Brown and Hatton Rural Ltd (another subsidiary of Brown and Hatton Group) to pay $240,000 in workers’ compensation. The Government replied that because the matter was before the courts it would not comment.