Page 3865 - Week 10 - Thursday, 27 August 2009
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Ms Gallagher: You guys are truly paranoid.
MR SMYTH: No. What we want is openness, not paranoia. You are paranoid; that is fine. What we want is openness. One question that needs to be raised is whether or not the CEO becomes a statutory appointment, not unlike the Auditor-General, so that there can be no doubt.
Part (c) states:
(c) concerns raised in a letter from the President of the ACT Labor Club Group to various members of the Australian Labor Party relating to outside interference in the operation of the Labor Club and the potential implications under the gaming, corporations and tax law;
As I have said, the gaming part of this will be looked at by the commission. But the problem is that the allegations raised about the breaches of the Corporations Law and tax law are not being looked at, to the best of my knowledge, unless the Treasurer can tell us, by anybody. She said so herself yesterday. That is not the purview of the commission.
If the commission is not looking at it—and we have brought to the attention of the Assembly potential breaches of law—what are we going to do about it? It does raise the question: what is the Attorney-General doing about it? He is the man responsible for the administration of law in the ACT.
Ms Gallagher: Yes, and I think you will find they are not ACT laws.
MR SMYTH: They are certainly not ACT laws. But if there are potential—
Ms Gallagher: They are regulatory bodies.
MR SMYTH: Have you referred it to the federal government?
Ms Gallagher: And there are regulatory bodies.
MR SMYTH: Have you referred it? The minister interjects, “There are regulatory bodies.”
Ms Gallagher: I have done my job, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: She has done her job. She has sent part of this to the gaming commission which potentially falls in her portfolio but has she referred the corporations concerns or the potential tax breaches to, if not the local Attorney-General—and she is right, he does not have control of this—to the federal Attorney-General? And the answer is clearly not.
If the government, when it has brought to its attention potential breaches of law, will not take actions to investigate those potential breaches of the law, then logically it is up to the Assembly to ensure that that occurs. If the Treasurer has not referred the
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