Month: November 2020

NSW Labor’s ban on Parliamentary Secretaries and Ministers receiving commissions from property developers has today passed the Lower House.
However, the Labor Leader, Jodi McKay has introduced further legislation to prevent all Members of Parliament from accepting such commissions.
Ms McKay said: “It shocks me that we need to do this. But as we’ve heard, the Premier thinks these payments are acceptable.”
The Independent Commission Against Corruption heard evidence the disgraced Liberal MP Daryl Maguire accepted commissions from property and that the Premier congratulated him with the words: “Congrats!!! That’s great!!! Woo hoo!”
“It’s illegal to receive donations from property developers. It should be illegal for the very same developers to pay politicians commissions.” Ms McKay said.
“We will seek support from the Government and cross bench to amend the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act to ban commissions from property developers for all MPs. They have a job to do. Their job is to represent their community.
“They should not be moonlighting with property developers and earning extra income.”

NSW Labor has condemned the Premier for refusing to support independent funding of the State’s anti-corruption body during Question Time at NSW Parliament.
A week after Gladys Berejiklian gave evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) about her former partner Daryl Maguire, the Auditor-General raised serious concerns about the financial independence of integrity agencies, including ICAC.
The review found the existing funding arrangements, including the Premier’s ability to restrict access to money, threatens the fairness, impartiality and transparency of:

• The Independent Commission Against Corruption
• The NSW Electoral Commission
• The NSW Ombudsman
• The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission

It also emerged Ms Berejiklian has rejected three funding requests from ICAC in five years, including during the investigation into Mr Maguire.
The NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay said independence is more important than ever, given the recent revelations.
“How can ICAC be expected to investigate the Premier, who they rely on for funding?” Ms McKay said.
“Labor has always supported strong integrity agencies that need independent funding. If the Premier fails to act, the Parliament will.
“There are three recommendations. We accept them without hesitation. If the Premier is genuine about fighting corruption, she needs to do the same today.”

NSW Labor is demanding the Premier and her Ministers end a culture of cover-up, after a parliamentary inquiry heard documents relating to the approval of grants in the $252 million Stronger Communities Fund were shredded and deleted from a senior staffer’s computer.
Gladys Berejiklian’s senior policy advisor Sarah Lau said the Premier marked documents during the approval process, which Ms Lau later destroyed in the shredder and removed from her computer.
95% of the funds were given to Councils in Coalition-held seats.
The Premier’s former Chief of Staff, Sarah Cruickshank also told the inquiry that Gladys Berejiklian did not declare her relationship with Daryl Maguire when she issued $40,000 in six grants to his Wagga Wagga electorate in 2017 and 2018.
Ms Cruikshank said the Premier should have disclosed the relationship because it was a conflict of interest.
The NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay said: “The Premier has repeatedly refused to disclose a conflict of interest.
“Gladys Berejiklian didn’t disclose her relationship when handing out thousands of dollars in grants from the Premier’s discretionary fund. She didn’t mention it during a $1.5 million Badgery’s Creek deal that would have cleared her partner Daryl Maguire’s debts.
“This is a breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct. Senior Ministers also have a responsibility to do their duty under the Code. Right now they’re tolerating bad behaviour.
“It’s a cartel of cover-up from a desperate Government protecting an embattled Premier. And it must stop,” Ms McKay said.
“Gladys Berejiklian is undermining the office of the Premier and the integrity of the NSW Government. The Premier should resign.”

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s scandal-ridden agency iCare broke its own procurement rules to award at least $6 million of contracts to Korn Ferry, a recruitment firm closely linked to former NSW Liberal Party Minister and Party Treasurer Robert Webster.
Robert Webster was a senior Minister in the Greiner Government. He also served as the NSW Liberal Party’s Finance Director in 2005. Until earlier this year, Korn Ferry listed Mr Webster as its Senior Client Partner & Head of Asia Pacific Board Services.  Public records show that since 2015 Mr Webster has donated $61,345 to the Federal Liberal Party.
Mr Webster was responsible for recruiting the iCare Board Director that replaced NSW Treasury Secretary Michael Pratt’s after his resignation in 2017.
Korn Ferry is currently searching for three new directors to be appointed next year.
NSW Labor’s Shadow Minister for Finance and Small Business, Daniel Mookhey said iCare’s latest scandal was ’shocking:’
“It’s incredible that iCare would break their own rules to put the former Treasurer of the NSW Liberal Party in-charge of board recruitment,” Mr Mookhey said.
“It’s hard to believe Korn Ferry would have won this tender without their close connection to the Liberal Party.
“Worse – The Treasurer is letting a Liberal-aligned company pick iCare’s new directors despite the cloud of suspicion hanging over their own appointment.”
Last month, NSW Labor exposed iCare for handing $18 million without tender to the IVE Group, another major party donor led by a former NSW Liberal Party President.
Public disclosures show that since 2014 the IVE Group has donated $151,004 to the Liberal Party. Mr Mookhey said:
“iCare has been secretly handing contracts to Liberal-aligned businesses like confetti. It stinks.
“No one can have confidence in iCare’s independence when it so entwined with senior Liberal Party figures and donors.”
iCare provides workers compensation insurance to more than 326,000 businesses. It insures 3.6 million employees. The agency’s investment portfolio is worth $38 billion. The Treasurer created iCare in 2015. It has only ever answered to him.
Under Dominic Perrottet’s stewardship:

• iCare secretly paid a labour hire company $700,00 to hire a former US Republican Operative to work in Dominic Perotett’s personal office.
• iCare underpaid 52,000 workers up to $80 million.
• iCare in February tried to prematurely eject 17,500 workers from the workers compensation system to offset the scheme’s growing losses.
• iCare secretly tried to cut off payments to thousands of injured workers to make up for years of multi-billion losses in the state’s workers compensation scheme.
• iCare sought to hike employer premiums by 4% and introduce a ‘gap fee’ for injured workers needing to see a doctor.
• iCare is under investigation for paying $22 million to insurance brokers in breach of the law.
• iCare’s CEO resigned after it emerged that iCare handed his wife a contract.
• iCare’s CEO and another top executive took an undisclosed sponsored trip to Las Vegas paid for by a multi-million contractor to the agency.
• iCare’s top executives took a 36 foreign trips in four years – ten times more than SIRA, their regulator.
• iCare faced an ICAC referral for handing an $11 million marketing contract to a company secretly owned by a top executive at the agency.
• Treasury in September 2019 secretly cancelled an external investigation into probity and governance at iCare after the former CEO complained.
• The State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) made referrals about iCare to the Independent Commission Against Corruption for further investigation.
• A damning independent review found that in 46 percent of claims handled, iCare failed to follow the relevant law.
• iCare organised with the Treasury a secret $4 billion bailout of the workers compensation fund for police, nurses, prison guards and teachers to stop it from collapsing.
• The Treasurer was warned in May that iCare was set to lose another $850 million before COVID-19 hit the scheme even harder.
• iCare racked up underwriting losses totalling $4.54 billion in the past three years.
• iCare’s $3.9 billion surplus effectively disappeared, before COVID-19 affected investment returns.

Despite this record Mr Perrotett told Parliament that iCare did a ‘superb’ job.
Mr Mookhey said:
“The Treasurer has his head-in-the-sand about the going-ons of his $38 billion agency.
“Sick and injured workers and employers have lost confidence in iCare. The Treasurer needs to go.”

NSW Labor has asked the Information and Privacy Commission to investigate the serious and systematic destruction of records that occurred in the Office of the Premier of NSW regarding the controversial Stronger Communities Fund -Tied Grants program.
Over 95 per cent of the $252 million fund was used for political purposes and awarded to projects in Coalition-held seats before the 2019 NSW State election.
A senior policy adviser to the NSW Premier recently gave evidence that she had shredded the only written records showing the Premier’s approval of $141.8 million of grants funding.
The adviser went on to delete all electronic copies describing the illegal destruction of documents as her ‘normal record management practice.’
NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay said: “This is a monumental cover-up. Gladys Berejiklian used public money for blatantly political purposes and then her staff destroyed evidence to cover-up the Premier’s involvement in this dodgy scheme.
“Under this Premier’s leadership, NSW is heading back to the bad old days. The public sees rort after rort and cover-up after cover-up but Gladys Berejiklian and her Ministers simply refuse to be held to account.”
Shadow Minister for Local Government Greg Warren said: “I have requested that the Information Commissioner investigate this incident and the serious and systemic breaches of record keeping obligations plaguing the Office of the Premier.
“These were public funds to be spent on local communities – not funds to be used for electioneering purposes by the NSW Liberals and Nationals.
“This is a further erosion of public trust and it leads right to the Premier’s door.”

NSW Labor is urging the Government to make preschool free for a further 18 months to boost workforce participation and kickstart the State’s economic recovery.
NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay said free preschool should be included as one of the Government’s key stimulus measures in the upcoming State budget: “Families are struggling. Access to free preschool will ease the pressure on household budgets so kids can stay in vital early learning regardless of their parents’ financial position.
“If the Government backs this initiative they’ll have bipartisan support. Economic recovery and jobs are the most important issues facing NSW,” Ms McKay said.
The Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Learning Jodie Harrison said it’s vital the Government ensures no children fall behind as NSW endures one of the worst economic downturns since the Great depression.
“In the long-term, there’s nothing more important than giving every child in NSW access to quality education. That starts before school. In this recession, with lots of families doing it tough financially, we want to make sure no children miss out.”
The benefits of early childhood education are significant and widespread:

• There are 5,500 early childhood education services in NSW including more than 750 pre-school services, and of the 400,000 children in services. 45,000 are in pre-school (more than 10%)
• Early childhood education provides a 1:2 Return on Investment (According to analysis undertaken by PwC for the Front Project ) – $2 of benefits flow to the economy for every $1 spent on early childhood education
• Closing the workforce participation gap could boost GDP by $60 billion over 20 years