Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2006-2007 and related bill to raise two basic issues. One is to continue my remarks about the importance of the Balancing work and family report, which we addressed when the report was debated here earlier this week—in fact we had only 10 minutes, so there are a few more things I would like to say. The other thing I want to raise is a very important issue in my electorate of Mackellar, and that is the sale by the New South Wales Labour Council of Currawong—truly something that ought to be listed as heritage property under the New South Wales Heritage Act—to a developer arranged by the agent who is also the buyer, for half market value.

There is an excellent article by Piers Akerman in this morning’s Telegraph newspaper. Piers points out in his article just how wrong this sale is. If something looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is likely to be a duck. If a cosy sale of a vital property looks like a crock and it smells like a crock, it is probably a crock.

The player in this game is Mr Robertson, the proponent of the sale for the Labour Council. They want to use the money to run a campaign against the federal government on Work Choices. They say that is the reason. The amount is $15 million. The state government’s own Department of Lands put in an earlier bid of $12½ million, and guess what? It withdrew it. There were two other developer offers made on the property, one for $30 million and one for $25 million. Mr Robertson has allegedly said of the $25 million offer that came from Macquarie Bank, ‘Over my dead body.’ But he wants to sell it to an organisation called KWC Capital Group.

The main players in this group are a Mr Linz and a Mr Tanevski. Mr Tanevski was brought on board by Mr Robertson, and it was reported in the paper that he said, ‘We wanted someone who understood how property developers operate.’ He knows, all right. He was the agent for the sale and he is selling it to himself. He is selling it to another organisation of KWC. But it is all a bit cosier than you would ever think.

KWC Capital Group has its registered place of business at level 12, 32 Martin Place, Sydney, which is the place of business of a firm known as Kingsway Financial Assessments Pty Ltd. Kingsway Financial Assessments is said in Piers Akerman’s article to have had Mr Linz and Mr Tanevski as directors. In 2001 they were granted by the state Department of Commerce a contract called the services contract under contract 0500969, which allows them to assess the financial capability of contractors for prequalification, pre-contract award and post-contract award monitoring for a wide range of contracts, including capital works, facilities, maintenance, goods and services as well as information communications and technology. In other words, the New South Wales Department of Commerce has outsourced the approval of people who are allowed to get contracts from the state government to this company, Kingsway Financial Assessments.

They first got a contract in 2001 and then, on 23 September 2005, the New South Wales State Contracts Control Board awarded the contract to do all those things again to Kingsway Financial Assessments, which is the registered office of, and has directors in common with, the agent who wants to sell Currawong to the buyer who is buying Currawong for one-half of the market value. I said earlier that, if something smells like a crock and it looks like a crock, it probably is a crock.

Piers Akerman says in his article that there was a further little company that this group of people were involved in. I will come to the name of the company in a moment. I think it is in the article. The article says:

Dealings between Robertson, Linz, Tanevski and another KWC capital Group director, Michael Braham, go back at least five years, when they were all on the board of the now defunct Unions NSW internet venture Getonboard. A company called Kingsway Capital took a one-third stake in the NSW ALP and Unions NSW venture, which offered discounted PC and internet packages to members of the two organisations.

Linz and Tanevski were directors of Kingsway Capital while Robertson, his predecessor and now NSW Treasurer Michael Costa, NSW ALP boss Mark Arbib, and his predecessor and now NSW Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal were among the ALP and union connections on the failed company’s board.

Selling Currawong has been a long-term desire for Costa, who almost managed to offload the workers’ retreat to Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who marketed transcendental meditation ...

That was before that project hit the dust. There is no suggestion that Mr Costa, Mr Arbib, Mr Roozendaal or Mr Braham were involved in the ultimate sale of Currawong, but Piers Akerman ably points out that this is a very cosy group. If you go to another New South Wales government activity, something called the New South Wales urban task force, which collects information about people for developing purposes, two of the members are Mr Allen Linz and Mr David Tanevski. So to try and say that it is just a coincidence that Mr Robertson had Mr Tanevski just to tell him how to develop his work and that they are an arms-length purchaser just does not wash. These people are up to their armpits with the Labor Party government in New South Wales.

I forgot to mention that Mr Sartor, who is, of course, the minister in charge of the heritage listing, is also the minister in charge of all planning and sales. And Mr Robertson, who is in charge of selling the property and is heading up the sale, sits on the Heritage Council. Isn’t it amazing that the Heritage Council application never gets dealt with? There are many questions that need to be asked about this deal.

When I read that article this morning I went back to an old file which I had not looked at for some time, because the whole question of outsourcing of government functions and how much it costs the government may in some way provide some of those answers about New South Wales. They have had an enormous amount of money, but where did it all go? So in getting out the file I literally was twigged when I read the article. Kingsway Financial Assessments rang a bell. Then I found the file. It is a very serious business and many questions have to be asked in this lead-up to the state election to just see how sullied that government has become.

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