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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-21 Daily Xml
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LAND MANAGEMENT CORPORATION

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:51): My question is to the—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: —Minister for Infrastructure. Has he, and the Land Management Corporation, acted in accordance with the law and with government financial and probity guidelines at all times in respect of the tender for the award to Newport Quays Project Management Pty Ltd for the remediation of land at the Port Adelaide waterfront redevelopment? A special report by the Auditor-General tabled today raises concerns about the minister's decision to cancel the open tender process for this work in favour of the company Newport Quays Project Management Pty Ltd.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: I'll be very careful.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: The Auditor-General said:

I am of the opinion that the corporation should have prepared an acquisition plan, tender evaluation plan and probity statement and plan for the invitation process.

The Auditor also said:

I am of the opinion that the corporation's minute to the Minister for Infrastructure and the corporation's board paper are incomplete in not fully explaining the legal and probity risks associated with the cancellation of the open invitation tender process in favour of a decision to directly appoint NQPM.

A decision made by the minister. The Auditor-General goes on to say:

Of overriding concern is that the corporation did not document the matters they considered in deciding to terminate the tender process in favour of appointing NQPM. The matters which were not appropriately documented included whether the developer/consortium (or related entity) had a right to require its appointment as remediation project manager and the corporation's capacity to cancel the procurement process in the circumstances.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Energy) (14:53): It is interesting how long it takes the Leader of the Opposition to read a report—quite a long time, about 40 minutes. The matter is this: the LMC put out to tender the remediation process at Port Adelaide, and I think about three tenderers came in. It was approached by Newport Quays saying that they had the right under the development agreement to do this work. Of course, I stress the original development agreement for the work was the result of a tender issued by the previous Liberal government. It was entirely their work.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I will come to this part. Having had that approach the corporation did what I think a prudent corporation would do and took legal advice. They took legal advice upon the meaning of those obligations and, for their legal advice, they used private lawyers because they are set up as a corporation that deals with a commercial charter. They took that legal advice and the legal advice was they owed the obligation to Newport Quays and that is what they did. They gave it to Newport Quays. At the time I was not prepared to ignore the legal advice; I am sure that you would have, but I was not prepared to ignore that.

Subsequently, the Auditor-General raised these matters. I am advised that, as recently as today, the LMC got further legal advice, this time from crown law. My understanding is that that advice confirms the earlier advice from its private legal advisers that it had this obligation. Let's set that aside before the leader of the opposition gets too excited.

What remains from that is the view by the Auditor-General that the process for validating that this organisation could do the work should have been better documented. That is the nub of it, and we accept, as always, the advice of the Auditor-General. My advice as recently as today is that very friendly discussions are taking place with the Auditor-General about the processes that should be used in times like these.

I assure you that, on these matters, I will never ignore the lawyers. I am not going to, despite the fact that there are people in here with very high opinions—some of them justified, like the Premier with his great experience as a JP, but others, I think, should be a little more careful about preferring their legal advice. I am a much more humble man. I take the advice of the lawyers including, in this case, a private lawyer and subsequently crown law.

It may be that the Auditor-General has a different view from crown law and the private lawyers, and he is fully entitled to but, in these circumstances, I think I might have been criticised a little more if I had ignored the lawyers' advice.

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