Missing documents demand close scrutiny

The auditor-general is not given to alarmist rhetoric, so when she warns politicians that the “loose” running of the former land agency opens up opportunities for fraud or tells them about an apparently missing box of documents that could throw light on the questionable deal with the CFMEU-linked Tradies club, those politicians should sit up and take notice.

The parliament is holding two inquires into land deals – one into the purchase of land at Glebe Park and West Basin, and the other into the Tradies land swap. A third audit is imminent – into the purchase of a swathe of farms around the city’s fringe, and it

would be surprising if this didn’t also spark an inquiry.

This week, auditor Maxine Cooper appeared before the investigation into the Tradies swap, a deal she found benefitted the Tradies by up to $2.6 million at taxpayers' expense.

Liberal Vicki Dunne said the inquiry was told that an officer "boxed up and ... sent off” documents.

Dr Cooper said she had been unable to track down the box, which was said to contain notebooks and records of about 40 meetings the Tradies claimed to have had with the government on the deal.

Labor’s Bec Cody, who has taken on the role of defender of the indefensible, suggested that perhaps only “some” documents were missing, to which Dr Cooper responded unequivocally: “Not some, I’d say a lot in this case, 40 meetings, you would expect some notes.”

“That’s a fundamental issue around the governance arrangements and integrity of a process,” she said, in comments that echo her concerns about documentation of the West Basin and Glebe Park deals at last year's inquiry.

"This whole thing ... opens up the opportunities for fraud, when you have a system this loose, without documentation," she said then.

Asked at last week's inquiry whether the two inquiries had parallels, she said, “Agencies’ responsibilities include the basic obligation to demonstrate, and I underline the word demonstrate, prudent use of public resources ... to adequately document their processes, the analysis, the range of considerations and the rationale for the decisions and actions. And in both cases that was missing.”

Chief Minister Andrew Barr has already paved the way to dismiss any findings. He split the land agency last year and will argue the problems are historic. But finding a scapegoat or two goes nowhere to address the underlying problem of a government so long in power, its numbers dominated by inexperience, that it doesn’t understand basics of accountability, and a public service so complacent and infused with people who have moved in and out of the offices of Labor politicians that the lines between politics and bureaucracy have blurred.

As the ACT’s pale and unconvincing version of parliamentary democracy plays out, it is to be hoped that the Greens - who keep Labor in power - wake up to the fundamental issues at stake and hold the government to proper account.