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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-20 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

O'Hanlon, Ms C.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (15:11): One could just about feel some sympathy for the much maligned Labor candidate for Dunstan after the recent weeks that we have traversed, in part due to the number of people and entities who have been very quick to speak up for and on behalf of her and on behalf of an entity that she has been publicly associated with by the name of Citadel Secure. When issues were first raised about the candidate and about Citadel Secure, we were quick to identify that an unnamed Labor spokesperson—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TEAGUE: —was in a position to speak for and on behalf of both her—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TEAGUE: —and on behalf of the company, without further explanation.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TEAGUE: What we know on the written record is that—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Heysen, be seated. Minister, you will cease interjecting. Member for Heysen.

Mr TEAGUE: What we know on the written record is that through the course of 2023 only—and by reference to the sleuthing that has been necessary to be undertaken over recent weeks, because the Labor candidate for Dunstan appears to be on the one hand interested in transparency, about public information about candidates, but on the other hand very slow to reveal any information at all except for denials in relation to her publicised involvement with Citadel. We are left to trawl the publicly released documents and enter here from, on the one hand, unnamed Labor spokespeople and on the other hand, from time to time, representatives of the government speaking for and on behalf of both the candidate and her husband.

We see that on 7 February last year an email was sent between Mr O'Hanlon and Ms O'Hanlon in relation to the matter of Citadel and under the topic 'Talking points', with the purpose of seeking a meeting for Citadel with a minister or chief of staff to discuss a proposal. That has been characterised by the Premier, no less, as a communication simply between a husband and a wife. So, on 7 February, the government tells us we are dealing with the wife of a director of Citadel.

On 13 April, the Minister for Trade and Investment, Mr Champion, indicated publicly that he met with Cressida O'Hanlon. We are not entirely clear in what capacity. By May of last year, the subject of a minister's minute dated 17 May, which the minister signed and noted on 23 May, we saw Ms O'Hanlon being described, not only by title but by biography as well, as a senior associate of an entity called Citadel Secure.

As recently as question time today, we had the Minister for Small Business indicate, 'Yes, I have participated in a meeting and it was attended by Cressida O'Hanlon who was a staffer of Reggie Martin.' In response to questions about whether she was surprised to learn that this person was held out as a senior associate of Citadel Secure, the minister had nothing more to say. We know that from a historical record of Citadel Secure's website, taken as recently as October last year, Cressida O'Hanlon is held out as a senior associate of Citadel.

All the way through last year, and right now to the present—and notwithstanding those public statements—Cressida O'Hanlon denies that she was ever a senior associate of Citadel, no less than the member for West Torrens on the radio on Monday morning denied that this was ever the case and, in fact, blamed a government official for inserting a Citadel Secure biography in the minister's briefing note on 17 May.

The best that we are told about Mr O'Hanlon's business, Citadel Secure—which appears to be associated with its senior associate, Cressida O'Hanlon—is that Mr O'Hanlon's business does not engage in lobbying, nor is it required to be registered as a lobbyist, and the business has not received any money from the state government. That is despite the fact that Minister Champion indicates that on 5 September he had a half-hour meeting with David Searles and James O'Hanlon, and we have seen from the documents that that has led all the way to opportunities for introduction to Don Farrell.

There was a hard-copy document that was associated with the meeting that has not found its way into the public record, it appears because it was not logged electronically, and questions are raised about records. So we are left—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr TEAGUE: —without any public transparency about who Citadel Secure is, why they were meeting with the minister, and in what capacity was Cressida O'Hanlon described as a senior associate of that company throughout the bulk of 2023. All these questions remain unanswered.

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Florey!

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