Page 175 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 December 2016
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serious issue. It is a very important word. That is why section 346 of the Criminal Code has potentially been breached here. The government potentially has sought to dishonestly obtain a gain, cause a loss or influence the exercise of a public duty.
That word was critical as to whether it was a valuation or not. With regard to acquisitions and with regard to procurement in general, there are processes that are meant to be followed. Getting valuations is part of that. If you have a situation whereby documents perhaps do not even include the word “valuation” or other such words, it potentially has a huge impact as to whether the document does in fact comply with the relevant procurement legislation.
That is why the motion is on the agenda today, and that is why we are so keen to make sure that we get answers to many of the unanswered questions. For example, we still do not actually know why the higher of the two valuations was accepted. We still do not know why a third valuation was not sought, given the huge variation in the two valuations that were received. One was $1 million. The other was $3.8 million. Surely, in a situation such as that, there would be questions asked, and a third valuation would be sought.
We still do not know why the government did not pursue a compulsory acquisition if they did not like the way in which the negotiation was going. At the same time, elsewhere in town the government were doing compulsory acquisitions. They were doing acquisitions under the Land Acquisition Act 1994 on Northbourne Avenue.
We still do not know the details of the stated delegation which allowed for the acquisition. We still do not know whether Aquis have had rights or options on this block, and whether that was a motivator for the government acquiring the block. We still do not know the plans or concept design for the so-called stormwater improvements, meant to be the reason the block was acquired in the first place. It just so happens that it is next to the casino. There is a wonderful artist’s impression for a grand new casino on this block, yet the government claim they have acquired it, spent $4 million acquiring it, so they can do stormwater reticulation on this site. Honestly, do they really expect us to believe this? It is interesting that you would pay all this money, yet have no plans for it. No plans exist for this stormwater reticulation arrangement. If they do, they should have been provided under freedom of information. It is all very well for the Chief Minister to say that the documents exist, but they have not been provided to the opposition.
This goes to the core issue here, Madam Speaker. There are serious integrity issues. I note that Ms Le Couteur talked about the role of developers and the potential issues there, to take a step further as to the role of developer donations or contributions. Quite frankly, I do not think any of that is relevant here. What is relevant here is that a basic government process that had nothing to do with developers, a basic government process, was corrupted. It is as simple as that. There were rules in place. There was a determination signed by the Treasurer. There were meant to be all these procedures in place to give taxpayers some comfort that their money was being spent properly.
We do not need more rules in this space. We do not need more regulations, necessarily. What we need is for the existing ones to actually be enforced. That is one
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