A former staffer at the Land Development Agency found two boxes containing Dickson land swap documents, but minutes of a series of meetings about the controversial land deal are either still missing or non-existent.
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The revelation that at least some of the documents previously believed missing were found came during a committee hearing into the 2014 land swap between the government and the CFMEU-linked Tradies Club.
That deal saw the club agree to buy a government car park outside the club and in return sell two of the club's blocks to the government, in an arrangement the ACT audit office found relinquished up to $2.65 million to the club.
The staffer, Graham Mundy, who now works in the planning directorate, said he found the two boxes shortly after the agency learnt the audit was underway, in the office of an agency's then recently-departed consultant Richard Drummond.
Despite finding the documents and filing them, Mr Mundy said he was unable to locate any minutes or notes from a series of meetings held between the government and the club.
Mr Mundy also said such documents were usually saved electronically in a central government hard drive as well as the registry, and it was unusual for such documents to be saved or held by any one individual without access for all staff.
He said he only went to search Mr Drummond's former work computer and office after searches of the agency and economic development directorate's files found nothing, and he believed there was no other box of missing documents.
Mr Mundy also told the committee he was surprised the economic development directorate had taken the lead on the land swap tender, as in his experience the agency would have, given it had been set up to sell government land.
However, it is unclear exactly when Mr Mundy began the search for the missing documents, after government officials said in July this year no such search had been undertaken, then in August Chief Minister Andrew Barr said a search was under way.
Former LDA sales head Clint Peters, now with the planning directorate, gave evidence he found it odd no agent had been appointed to handle the sale of the car park block, and that the executives handling it in the economic development directorate never explained why.
Mr Peters said despite not directly handling the car park sale, across the agency the “sensitivities” of the sale to the club were well-known, and with the luxury of hindsight the entire world might be different, but at the time he felt there were enough well-qualified staff involved so his team did not need to be directly involved.
The audit also found the car park request for tender had not been widely advertised, and an advertisement appeared in The Canberra Times before Cabinet had officially signed off on the sale.
While the early advertisement may have been an administrative oversight, Mr Peters said he was a bit nervous about the advertisement going out when he discovered Cabinet had not signed off on it.
But he said while it was not ideal that the property was advertised before the sale was approved, it did happen on occasion, but in other cases it would usually have been documents that were not finalised before the advertisement was published, rather than official approvals.
ACT Government Solicitor Peter Garrison also fronted the inquiry, and was mainly asked about his office's advice cited in the report that seemed to raise concerns about potential probity risks with the sale, given the magnitude of changes that were made after awarding the tender.
Mr Garrison repeatedly said his office did not mean risks were already present, but rather that it was raising an issue that those negotiating the deal for the government should proceed with caution, should changes go too far.
He said while the audit raised concerns about a lack of probity, probity officers were not present at every meeting and usually simply received instructions, sought advice and provided advice back to government agencies.
Mr Garrison also said that despite the auditor's office's concerns about the transaction, nothing was ever raised with him that caused alarm bells to ring in his head, though he had little day-to-day carriage of the matter.
Other former officials Ian Wood-Bradley and Stephen Terracini were also called to give evidence, on advice from the planning directorate that they were involved in the deal. However both said that was not the case and they were allowed to leave.
