Grievance Debate

DeMARCO, MS A.

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (15:19): This matter was brought to my attention by a whistleblower. The Minister for Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology needs to investigate this. It concerns a senior public servant, Ms Angela DeMarco, and her longstanding association with Mr Tony Hancock. Ms DeMarco is a permanent employee of the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology. She manages the Skills Recognition Services (SRS) which has recently been nominated for one of the Premier's awards.

Ms DeMarco also has her own business, called Angela DeMarco and Associates, which is registered as a migration agent service in Tranmere. Given that the Skills Recognition Services deals with potential long-term migrants to Australia, there would appear to be a conflict of interest between her Public Service role, especially given the personal details of clients available to her, and the business of a migration agent. I raise the issue of whether this apparent conflict of interest has been declared by Ms DeMarco and, if so, how it could have been approved.

A more serious issue has been raised with me. Mr Tony Hancock is the director of A. Hancock Consultants, a company based in Glenelg which provides employment advice and support to migrants for substantial fees. Since the 1990s, Ms DeMarco has been in positions that involved migrant advice and employment support. Under Ms DeMarco's management, Mr Hancock has been contracted for a fee to provide various services.

I am told that in about 2006 Mr Hancock was successful in gaining a $20,000 contract to develop a new web and database portal for two schemes—the SRSS and the TRSS—both relevant to migrant employment services. Ms DeMarco was on the committee which awarded the contract.

In mid-2007, the department merged the two services into the Skills Recognition Services and Ms DeMarco was appointed manager. The new Skills Recognition Services opened in mid-2008. For this agency, Ms DeMarco has at times engaged Mr Hancock to conduct internal staff training.

During 2009, Mr Hancock was contracted to work on the database operating system of SRS and thus had access to all client information. Ms DeMarco also initiated publicly funded information seminars. I am told Mr Hancock was paid $2,000 per day to run these. Mr Hancock was given full access to records of attendees and he promoted one of his own companies during these events. This company offered employment support and advice to migrants for a commercial fee.

Mr Hancock recently made unsolicited contact with SRS registered clients with offers of contracts to assist with employment support and placement. These contracts commit the migrant to a $2,000 fee with a $20,000 penalty if they break the contract. It would appear that the only way Mr Hancock would have the names and addresses of these SRS clients would be from information obtained from that agency.

It should be stressed that the SRS clients are generally professionals who are brought to Australia to fill gaps in our labour force. For example, we bring in doctors, nurses and accountants because we simply do not have enough Aussies to fulfil our needs. For these professional migrants, a condition of their visa is that they must obtain employment here or they will be sent back, thus they are desperate for job placement and easily preyed upon.

Section 251 of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act relates to abuse of public office. Among other things, it states that a public officer who improperly uses information that the public officer has gained by virtue of his or her public office with the intention of securing a benefit for himself or herself or for another person is guilty of an offence. The maximum penalty is imprisonment for seven years. The definition of public officer includes contractors to a public agency.