Grievance Debate

McGowan, Dr C.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:12): One of the first things that this Premier did when he came into office was to sack Vickie Kaminski, who was the head of SA Health, and put in his own hand-picked chief executive of SA Health, Dr Chris McGowan. Dr Chris McGowan came from working for Silver Chain, which provides out-of-hospital services.

It has been revealed in a stunning revelation today that, for the first 2½ months that Dr Chris McGowan was meant to be working for the people of South Australia—was meant to be working for everybody out there on behalf of our public health services—he actually had a secret appointment as a director of Silver Chain Corporate Services Pty Ltd. Nobody knew about this. It was not discussed. During that time in which he held this appointment, there were clear dealings in regard to Silver Chain's contracts.

Silver Chain were appointed a lucrative contract worth millions of dollars to provide services in South Australia, and Chris McGowan has admitted previously that he signed through that minute to the minister. He did not recuse himself from that involvement and now we know that at the same time he did that he was a director in one of the group of companies that was involved.

Chris McGowan was informed about this back in July last year by Silver Chain, and what did he do then? Did he tell the minister? Apparently not, according to the minister's answers in question time yesterday and today. Did he tell the Premier? Not apparently, according to the Premier's answers in question time in this house today. What he did was sign a resignation form that was backdated to 2½ months prior, to the Friday before he started on the Monday as the chief executive of SA Health. That is a scandal. That stinks and that is highly suspicious. I think it is a clear breach of the Corporations Act.

Section 1308(2) of the Corporations Act says that you are not allowed to mislead ASIC in relation to corporate law and corporate filings and directorships, yet here we had a misleading statement that was provided by the chief executive of SA Health that went to Silver Chain and was provided to ASIC and filed in ASIC. You can see the ASIC records as they stand now, which state very clearly that it was apparently, according to those records, before he became the chief executive. But we know that that was not the case because we know that the chief executive, Dr McGowan, was sent an email by Tess Meldrum on 16 July entitled Resignation for Silver Chain Corporate Services, which states:

Hi Chris

Quick and easy task; promise!

On your last day at Silver Chain, we completed resignations for two entities but missed SCCS. Sorry! Can you please sign and return the attached this week? (Email is fine)

[Regards,] Tess

And then there was a minute attached from Scott Logan, the group financial controller. Was this addressed to Chris McGowan private citizen, or Chris McGowan former director of Silver Chain? No. It was addressed on that date to Christopher McGowan, the Director of Silver Chain Corporate Services Pty Ltd. It said:

[We require updating details] for the annual company statement...Accordingly, could you please assist with completing the following Sole Director's resolution and Director's resignation.

Resolutions request appointment of Lynette Jones and removal of Christopher McGowan…

And then the form that was provided to do this was not dated. This document was dated 16 July; the following document was dated 4 May. This was a clear attempt to cover up the fact that the Chief Executive of SA Health was wearing two hats for over 2½ months. What do we know? Silver Chain got a contract in that time. What do we know? This government was setting about appointing Silver Chain to other contracts in that time.

The Premier would not reveal anything today. In fact, the Premier is saying, 'There's nothing to see here.' He did not think that any threshold had been reached in this matter. He thinks that it is appropriate that there be no independent investigation into this matter and that the only investigation that should take place should be done by the person who did the recruitment work that the Premier was handballing all the responsibility to when he said the recruitment happened. He then tried to blame us, saying we disrespected her. We do not. We are calling for an independent investigation, though. We are calling on Chris McGowan to stand down while the investigation takes place, and that is the only appropriate thing that should be happening in this circumstance.