Page 3321 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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There is “Defiant Labor Club board faces sack”. Let me quote:
The Canberra Labor Club board will be sacked if it does not comply with ACT Labor’s orders to halt the $25 million sale of its gambling assets to the Tradies Clubs.
Let me quote again:
… in an extraordinary move, the board of the clubs, which are owned by the ACT Labor Party, convened immediately and voted to reject the order to halt the sale.
That obviously changed. We see the Chief Minister and the direct influence. On 29 July he said in the Canberra Times:
It would be bizarre in the extreme if the Labor Party as the owner of an asset says we no longer wish to sell this asset but a group, albeit members of the Labor Party and directors of the board, says well we are going to sell the asset anyway. That’s just untenable …
And again, in the end, the sale was halted. Let me quote:
Tradies withdraw $25m bid for Labor Club
The move comes just days after the Labor Club’s board vowed to push on with the deal, despite being ordered by ACT’s … administration committee to halt the sale.
Chief Minister Jon Stanhope and ACT … Labor Party Secretary Ted Quinlan delivered a thinly veiled threat to the club’s board …
… local … sources have strongly criticised the pressure brought to bear on the Canberra Labor Club board to halt the sale, suggesting pressure from Labor’s national executive had forced the sale to be suspended.
And then we see the board break. The questions we are examining were not raised by us; these were raised by the president of the ACT—of the Labor club. The president of the Labor club raised this.
Ms Gallagher: The Labor club board, I think you mean, Mr Seselja.
MR SESELJA: The president of the Labor club and national executive—
Ms Gallagher: Not the Labor Party.
MR SESELJA: I did not say “Labor Party”. Let me quote:
A national executive directive relayed by then ACT party secretary David Tansey, obtained by the Canberra Times, reveals senior figures in the ALP ordered the ACT wing to do “everything in its power” to block the sale of its four clubs.
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