Mr BAILEY - 1997-04-23
Recently, Moira Dondas described on radio the video, made with taxpayers' money given to her company by the Chief Minister, as `a commercial winner'. The Chief Minister took this proposal from Moira Dondas's company to Cabinet. It has since been shown that the procedures used to allocate the money to the Dondas company were contrary to law. What conditions were attached to the money given to the company owned by Moira Dondas? Has that money been returned in light of the private commercial benefit Moira Dondas boasts of receiving? Has the Chief Minister been duped, or has he been complicit throughout?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I am glad this question has been asked.
Mr Bell: You broke the law.
Mr STONE: The member for MacDonnell says that I broke the law. I ask for that to be withdrawn.
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Mr SPEAKER: The member should withdraw that statement.
Mr Bell: You are very sensitive, aren't you?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I ask the member to withdraw.
Mr BELL: Mr Speaker, I withdraw.
Mr STONE: I am pleased the question has been asked.
Mr Bell: How does `official corruption' sound?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: The great tragedy of all of this is ...
Mr Bell: How does `misappropriation' sound?
Mr STONE: Mr Speaker, I ask for that to be withdrawn also.
Mr SPEAKER: The member for MacDonnell is making things very difficult at present. I place him on a warning as well. He will withdraw.
Mr Bell: Misappropriation of ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Withdraw and sit down.
Mr BELL: Yes, sir. I withdraw. The member is very touchy.
Mr STONE: It is not a question of being touchy. It is a question of members opposite coming into this Chamber - we have just seen an example of it - and telling only half the story. The reality is that they are not interested in the answer because they know that the answer ...
Mr Bailey: The CLP cannot ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have warned the member for Wanguri.
Mr Bell: Perhaps the Chief Minister should be given a warning for provocation.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: The reality is that Jalan Kita was a completed project. I will explain what really does hurt in all of this and that has been the grubby way in which the member for Wanguri has demeaned an otherwise very successful unit of the Northern Territory government, the International Project Management Unit. Originally, it was in the Ministry of Education. It was transferred subsequently to the Department of Industries and Development which, Territorians will recall, later became the Department of Asian Relations, Trade and Industry.
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To ensure that people understand exactly what happened here, because it is out in the open and transparent and there is no secret about it, there was ...
Mr Bailey: You changed the chairman ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: Cabinet submissions were prepared. They were circulated and they were commented on by all departments. It went to Cabinet and ...
Mr Bailey: Not one bit of evidence was provided to the PAC.
Mr STONE: It went to Cabinet and it was approved.
Mr Bailey: When?
Mr STONE: Will the member for Wanguri allow me to answer the question or does he intend to interject continually? I know that people would like to hear the answer to this question.
Mr Bailey: I have been trying to ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I remind the member for Wanguri again. He is only just staying in here at present. If he talks over me, he will be named.
Mr STONE: That would probably suit him. He wants to be a martyr in all of this, and he does not really want the truth to come out.
The reality is that it went through the system by way of Cabinet submission. The member for Wanguri tries to create the impression that somehow I had personally approved this, that it had been done by way of ministerial approval within the department.
Mr Ah Kit: Was it?
Mr STONE: To pick up the interjection, the answer is no. This is the problem when trying to deal with you. Either you do not want to understand the processes of government, or you want simply to try to complicate things in the public mind.
This goes by way of a Cabinet submission. Subsequently it is approved by Cabinet. The project actually happens and it is a success. When you read ...
Mr Stirling: Not according to the report.
Mr STONE: When you read the dissenting report ...
Mr Stirling: It was a disaster. `Of no commercial value' is what it said.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
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Mr STONE: Is the member for Nhulunbuy interested in the answer?
Mr Stirling: I am just telling you what was stated in the report. It was of no commercial value.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: I will pick up that interjection because that takes me exactly to the dissenting report. That is what he claimed, and yet ...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr STONE: ... when you read ...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr STONE: I find this situation almost impossible, Mr Speaker.
Mr Stirling: Tell the truth.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister will please resume his seat. It is becoming extremely difficult for ministers to answer questions in the climate being created by the opposition. There is far too much interjection. There are 2 members currently on warnings. Another is about to be warned, if he is not very careful, and I am in the mood for naming.
Mr STONE: Mr Speaker, yesterday, the member for Wanguri tabled his dissenting report. When one reads it, it is the same cracked record. Take the Markwick-Smith memo. His dissenting report does not gel with the substance of the memo. This is half the problem - they are telling only half the story and they tell it in a very selective way.
A member opposite - I do not know whether it was the member for Wanguri or someone else - interjected that the committee did not even call any witnesses ...
Mr Bailey: It didn't.
Mr STONE: I asked both the former chairman and the current chairman whether a request had ever been made for me, for example, to be called before the committee, and the answer was no. If the member for Wanguri was really serious about all of this, why did he not demand that the minister at the time, Shane Stone, be called before the committee? But it gets worse. I read the dissenting report and I was looking for the section on myself. There is nothing about me. There is absolutely no reference to me. What we have here is a case of recent invention, and it is all backed up by the member for Wanguri getting into the lift with one of my ministerial colleagues and saying that it was a toss-up whether the opposition would go after that colleague, myself or the member for Braitling. That was the beginning of this.
The member for Wanguri has not been fair dinkum about this issue at any stage. If he had wanted to call me before that committee, I would have appeared happily. I have nothing
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to hide. In fact, I am proud of the IPMU. I am proud of the work that it has done and I am proud of the successful projects.
Let me deal with this allegation of something being contrary to law. I want Territorians to understand what money was used. The IPMU was a very successful commercial arm of government. It ran a number of commercial projects offshore - for example, the Indonesian-Australian technical and vocational education program (IATVEP) in the eastern Indonesian provinces - and we made money from it. The profit went into a separate ...
Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr STONE: ... account and that money was used, from time to time, to do a whole range of things.
If the member for Stuart will be quiet, he will hear the answer.
That included the SEAPREAMS conference, which I am sure all members opposite would support. It included a sponsorship of the Arafura Games, which I am sure all members opposite would support. I do not hear them saying that that was contrary to law or illegal. It included also the support of particular projects.
Mr Bailey: Was the member for the Northern Territory's wife a financial recipient?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: One of those was the Jalan Kita project.
The member for Wanguri always couches his questions and his statements on this in terms of `the Speaker's wife' or `the federal member's wife'. This lady has an identity in her own right. She has a right to a life of her own.
Mr Stirling: Does she have a right to taxpayers' money?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: I am a little surprised that the Leader of the Opposition has allowed the member for Wanguri to get away with this. Really, what these members are saying is that a woman cannot have a career and cannot pursue a business in her own right.
Mr Stirling: How many other businesswomen have you given $350 000 to? You talk ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister will resume his seat. I warn the member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr STONE: These are the answers members opposite do not want the community to have because they explain fully all of the issues that the member for Wanguri has raised. I understand that the member for Wanguri, having tabled his dissenting report yesterday, has
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now abandoned his motion. What is wrong? Don't you want to have the full debate and discussion? I am happy to have it. I am happy to go through with it.
Mr Stirling: You ran a mile last time.
Mr STONE: No one ran a mile. There you were, on one of the busiest days of the Assembly, on the last day at the eleventh hour, trying to run a motion that you had had the whole 2 weeks of sittings to run, and you did not do it.
Mr Bailey: The PAC tabled its report then.
Mr STONE: Let me come back to some of ...
Mr Bailey: It was saved until the last day.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister will resume his seat. The only thing that is saving the member for Wanguri at present is that I had not yet called for order. If he continues in this vein, he will be named. I assure the member for Wanguri now that he will be named.
Mr Bailey: Mr Speaker, he ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! You will resume your seat as well.
Mr STONE: We have heard all these colourful words like `an action contrary to law'. Certain interjections were made by the member for MacDonnell. All of this is simply typical ...
Mr Ah Kit: Give all businesswomen the same amount of money and we will not have any problems.
Mr STONE: It is typical of the half-truths that the other side peddles. I want people listening to the broadcast to understand clearly that this proposal was no different from a whole raft of others that had been put up and had been supported by the department, had been subjected to the full scrutiny and comment of all other departments, had gone to Cabinet and had been approved in a Cabinet environment. Let us dispense once and for all with the nonsense that this was some sort of back-handed deal.
Mr Bailey: It was secret. It was money from a trust account.
Mr STONE: If you want to make an allegation of corruption against me, will you tell me exactly what it is that I have done that is corrupt? Have I lined my pockets? Have I derived a benefit? You keep throwing the word around, but you will not actually say what it is that I, as an individual, am supposed to have done. The reason why you do not say it is that the reality is that there has been no wrongdoing.
To pick up the interjection about the trust account, because the member was not listening before, these were the profits that were generated by IPMU. He can shake his head, but they were. They were properly used for these projects by way of Treasurer's delegation. If you are going to condemn the use of those funds - listen, because this is important - for the
Page 2044
production of Jalan Kita, which was successfully completed and led to other programs in Indonesia, you must also condemn the use of funds from the same account to support the Arafura Games and to support SEAPREAMS and a whole raft of other activities that the department has supported over time.
As I said before, the member did not ask for me to be brought before the PAC and he has never given me the opportunity to defend myself in that committee environment. However, he tried to create the impression that somehow I had tried to skirt around it. That is not true. I would appeared there happily. Secondly, he did not even refer to me in his dissenting report. How fair dinkum is he? He is not.
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ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I am glad this question has been asked.
Mr Bell: You broke the law.
Mr STONE: The member for MacDonnell says that I broke the law. I ask for that to be withdrawn.
Page 2039
Mr SPEAKER: The member should withdraw that statement.
Mr Bell: You are very sensitive, aren't you?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I ask the member to withdraw.
Mr BELL: Mr Speaker, I withdraw.
Mr STONE: I am pleased the question has been asked.
Mr Bell: How does `official corruption' sound?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: The great tragedy of all of this is ...
Mr Bell: How does `misappropriation' sound?
Mr STONE: Mr Speaker, I ask for that to be withdrawn also.
Mr SPEAKER: The member for MacDonnell is making things very difficult at present. I place him on a warning as well. He will withdraw.
Mr Bell: Misappropriation of ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Withdraw and sit down.
Mr BELL: Yes, sir. I withdraw. The member is very touchy.
Mr STONE: It is not a question of being touchy. It is a question of members opposite coming into this Chamber - we have just seen an example of it - and telling only half the story. The reality is that they are not interested in the answer because they know that the answer ...
Mr Bailey: The CLP cannot ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have warned the member for Wanguri.
Mr Bell: Perhaps the Chief Minister should be given a warning for provocation.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: The reality is that Jalan Kita was a completed project. I will explain what really does hurt in all of this and that has been the grubby way in which the member for Wanguri has demeaned an otherwise very successful unit of the Northern Territory government, the International Project Management Unit. Originally, it was in the Ministry of Education. It was transferred subsequently to the Department of Industries and Development which, Territorians will recall, later became the Department of Asian Relations, Trade and Industry.
Page 2040
To ensure that people understand exactly what happened here, because it is out in the open and transparent and there is no secret about it, there was ...
Mr Bailey: You changed the chairman ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: Cabinet submissions were prepared. They were circulated and they were commented on by all departments. It went to Cabinet and ...
Mr Bailey: Not one bit of evidence was provided to the PAC.
Mr STONE: It went to Cabinet and it was approved.
Mr Bailey: When?
Mr STONE: Will the member for Wanguri allow me to answer the question or does he intend to interject continually? I know that people would like to hear the answer to this question.
Mr Bailey: I have been trying to ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I remind the member for Wanguri again. He is only just staying in here at present. If he talks over me, he will be named.
Mr STONE: That would probably suit him. He wants to be a martyr in all of this, and he does not really want the truth to come out.
The reality is that it went through the system by way of Cabinet submission. The member for Wanguri tries to create the impression that somehow I had personally approved this, that it had been done by way of ministerial approval within the department.
Mr Ah Kit: Was it?
Mr STONE: To pick up the interjection, the answer is no. This is the problem when trying to deal with you. Either you do not want to understand the processes of government, or you want simply to try to complicate things in the public mind.
This goes by way of a Cabinet submission. Subsequently it is approved by Cabinet. The project actually happens and it is a success. When you read ...
Mr Stirling: Not according to the report.
Mr STONE: When you read the dissenting report ...
Mr Stirling: It was a disaster. `Of no commercial value' is what it said.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Page 2041
Mr STONE: Is the member for Nhulunbuy interested in the answer?
Mr Stirling: I am just telling you what was stated in the report. It was of no commercial value.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: I will pick up that interjection because that takes me exactly to the dissenting report. That is what he claimed, and yet ...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr STONE: ... when you read ...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr STONE: I find this situation almost impossible, Mr Speaker.
Mr Stirling: Tell the truth.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister will please resume his seat. It is becoming extremely difficult for ministers to answer questions in the climate being created by the opposition. There is far too much interjection. There are 2 members currently on warnings. Another is about to be warned, if he is not very careful, and I am in the mood for naming.
Mr STONE: Mr Speaker, yesterday, the member for Wanguri tabled his dissenting report. When one reads it, it is the same cracked record. Take the Markwick-Smith memo. His dissenting report does not gel with the substance of the memo. This is half the problem - they are telling only half the story and they tell it in a very selective way.
A member opposite - I do not know whether it was the member for Wanguri or someone else - interjected that the committee did not even call any witnesses ...
Mr Bailey: It didn't.
Mr STONE: I asked both the former chairman and the current chairman whether a request had ever been made for me, for example, to be called before the committee, and the answer was no. If the member for Wanguri was really serious about all of this, why did he not demand that the minister at the time, Shane Stone, be called before the committee? But it gets worse. I read the dissenting report and I was looking for the section on myself. There is nothing about me. There is absolutely no reference to me. What we have here is a case of recent invention, and it is all backed up by the member for Wanguri getting into the lift with one of my ministerial colleagues and saying that it was a toss-up whether the opposition would go after that colleague, myself or the member for Braitling. That was the beginning of this.
The member for Wanguri has not been fair dinkum about this issue at any stage. If he had wanted to call me before that committee, I would have appeared happily. I have nothing
Page 2042
to hide. In fact, I am proud of the IPMU. I am proud of the work that it has done and I am proud of the successful projects.
Let me deal with this allegation of something being contrary to law. I want Territorians to understand what money was used. The IPMU was a very successful commercial arm of government. It ran a number of commercial projects offshore - for example, the Indonesian-Australian technical and vocational education program (IATVEP) in the eastern Indonesian provinces - and we made money from it. The profit went into a separate ...
Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr STONE: ... account and that money was used, from time to time, to do a whole range of things.
If the member for Stuart will be quiet, he will hear the answer.
That included the SEAPREAMS conference, which I am sure all members opposite would support. It included a sponsorship of the Arafura Games, which I am sure all members opposite would support. I do not hear them saying that that was contrary to law or illegal. It included also the support of particular projects.
Mr Bailey: Was the member for the Northern Territory's wife a financial recipient?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: One of those was the Jalan Kita project.
The member for Wanguri always couches his questions and his statements on this in terms of `the Speaker's wife' or `the federal member's wife'. This lady has an identity in her own right. She has a right to a life of her own.
Mr Stirling: Does she have a right to taxpayers' money?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: I am a little surprised that the Leader of the Opposition has allowed the member for Wanguri to get away with this. Really, what these members are saying is that a woman cannot have a career and cannot pursue a business in her own right.
Mr Stirling: How many other businesswomen have you given $350 000 to? You talk ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister will resume his seat. I warn the member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr STONE: These are the answers members opposite do not want the community to have because they explain fully all of the issues that the member for Wanguri has raised. I understand that the member for Wanguri, having tabled his dissenting report yesterday, has
Page 2043
now abandoned his motion. What is wrong? Don't you want to have the full debate and discussion? I am happy to have it. I am happy to go through with it.
Mr Stirling: You ran a mile last time.
Mr STONE: No one ran a mile. There you were, on one of the busiest days of the Assembly, on the last day at the eleventh hour, trying to run a motion that you had had the whole 2 weeks of sittings to run, and you did not do it.
Mr Bailey: The PAC tabled its report then.
Mr STONE: Let me come back to some of ...
Mr Bailey: It was saved until the last day.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister will resume his seat. The only thing that is saving the member for Wanguri at present is that I had not yet called for order. If he continues in this vein, he will be named. I assure the member for Wanguri now that he will be named.
Mr Bailey: Mr Speaker, he ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! You will resume your seat as well.
Mr STONE: We have heard all these colourful words like `an action contrary to law'. Certain interjections were made by the member for MacDonnell. All of this is simply typical ...
Mr Ah Kit: Give all businesswomen the same amount of money and we will not have any problems.
Mr STONE: It is typical of the half-truths that the other side peddles. I want people listening to the broadcast to understand clearly that this proposal was no different from a whole raft of others that had been put up and had been supported by the department, had been subjected to the full scrutiny and comment of all other departments, had gone to Cabinet and had been approved in a Cabinet environment. Let us dispense once and for all with the nonsense that this was some sort of back-handed deal.
Mr Bailey: It was secret. It was money from a trust account.
Mr STONE: If you want to make an allegation of corruption against me, will you tell me exactly what it is that I have done that is corrupt? Have I lined my pockets? Have I derived a benefit? You keep throwing the word around, but you will not actually say what it is that I, as an individual, am supposed to have done. The reason why you do not say it is that the reality is that there has been no wrongdoing.
To pick up the interjection about the trust account, because the member was not listening before, these were the profits that were generated by IPMU. He can shake his head, but they were. They were properly used for these projects by way of Treasurer's delegation. If you are going to condemn the use of those funds - listen, because this is important - for the
Page 2044
production of Jalan Kita, which was successfully completed and led to other programs in Indonesia, you must also condemn the use of funds from the same account to support the Arafura Games and to support SEAPREAMS and a whole raft of other activities that the department has supported over time.
As I said before, the member did not ask for me to be brought before the PAC and he has never given me the opportunity to defend myself in that committee environment. However, he tried to create the impression that somehow I had tried to skirt around it. That is not true. I would appeared there happily. Secondly, he did not even refer to me in his dissenting report. How fair dinkum is he? He is not.
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Last updated: 09 Aug 2016