News location:

Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Coe says Canberrans ‘betrayed’ by Dickson land deal

Opposition Leader Alistair Coe.
WHILE Minister for Planning and Land Management Mick Gentleman says the audit into the land transaction in Dickson has been “put to bed”, Opposition Leader Alistair Coe says it’s “worse than we thought”.

On Thursday, February 22, ACT Auditor-General Maxine Cooper released a performance audit report for the sale of Block 30 (formerly Block 20) Section 34, Dickson, which, Mr Gentleman says concludes that there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

But, it also concludes that the Economic Development Directorate did not conduct the tender process for Block 30 Section 34 effectively and didn’t achieve the sale objective of pursuing an open, contestable and transparent market process and there are indications it did not achieve value for money from the sale.

“Significant weaknesses in the Directorate’s management of the tender means there is a high risk it has relinquished considerable financial value to the Canberra Tradesmen’s Union Club Ltd (Tradies),” according to the report.

“There is also a high risk that the Directorate sold Block 30 Section 34 to the Tradies in breach of the Planning and Development Act 2007.

“There is no evidence that the decision to proceed with the transaction, in the circumstances, gave sufficient regard to these risks. Systems need to be implemented to prevent this occurring in the future; importantly, all staff involved in undertaking land transactions also need to have clarity regarding expected behaviours through well-articulated values, particularly with respect to managing the integration of probity and commercial considerations.”

In light of the report Mr Coe says the scandalous land deals between the ACT Labor-Greens government and the Tradies are far worse than the Opposition thought.

Mr Coe says Canberrans will feel betrayed when learning that the ACT government paid $3.9million to to the Tradies for a building housing CFMEU HQ before renting it back to the Tradies for $1 per year.

“Today’s Auditor-General’s report reveals the extent of the terrible deal for taxpayers,” he says. 

In response to the report Mr Gentleman says the ACT government has previously acknowledged some poor record keeping practices and decision making by the former Land Development Agency.

“Since a separate Auditor-General’s report in 2016, significant work has been undertaken to improve processes and governance for large land transactions,” he says.

“The staff in question are no longer members of the ACT Public Service.”

Harris: Dickson deal would go to ICAC in NSW

 

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews