08-24-2015, 09:06 PM
Too many favourites to list, but below are a couple of my favourites;
Senator STERLE: So they are both directors on the board of ICCPM. Airservices Australia, via the taxpayer, is paying Mr Bradford $1 million to negotiate with his mate, who is also the boss of Thales—and this does not look murky?
Mr Harfield : Senator, as I said—
CHAIR: You have a straight face.
Senator STERLE: Are you serious?
Mr Harfield : Senator, as I said—
Senator STERLE: How do I get this gig?
Senator BULLOCK: It is all disclosed, so it must be okay. I think that is their evidence.
Senator STERLE: I cannot believe it!
And;
Senator STERLE: So what are you suggesting? If we want to get the root of how it was all done, we should have the board and the chairman in front of us? Is that what we should be doing? It took you three goes to come out and say you could not quite maybe lock in the whole board. This is what has given us some problems with Airservices before. We have all played the game in Senate estimates. We know that, the more questions we ask, the more answers you can come up with. All we want is the simple truth, a simple yes or no. Am I right that you have confirmed with me that you cannot guarantee that the board absolutely knew of the interlocking relationships between ICCPM since 2012 and Mr Jenkins as a director—
And;
CHAIR: You have had some pretty dramatic, shall we say, events in Airservices and you have lost, in recent times, Mr Russell's replacement. You have lost your chief financial officer, Mr Clarke, have you not?
Mr Harfield : That is right.
CHAIR: He got handed what I would call the 'shit sandwich' on all the financial stuff that went wrong, and Mr Russell went to heaven. What sort of package did he get when he left?
Mr Harfield : I am not privy to any of the confidential or commercial arrangements.
CHAIR: Who is? You are the boss but you do not know.
And;
Senator STERLE: For those of the uninitiated that are sitting around listening to this, this seems very strange that there is a flurry of departures by senior people from Airservices and we know there were some serious pays. I think Ms Staib told us it was nearly $700,000 or whatever. I am sure the CFO was not on a truckies wage. But you have come here today, you know we are going to talk about redundancies and bonuses, and no-one at Airservices thought, 'How far do you think the senators might want to go back?' No-one from Airservices may have thought—and I am looking at you, Mr Harfield, as CEO—'Crikey, we better arm ourselves with some logical pieces of information that will go to why people left, how much they got, the packages, why they got it.' You do not have that information?
This is absolutely appalling and it is a trend being set with Airservices that is actually like pulling teeth. I was hoping, Mr Harfield, you would be a new broom but you are not setting me on fire.
And;
Senator XENOPHON: But do you not want to know about the size of this discretionary fund the board may have? Do we know how big this discretionary fund is that the board may have?
Mr Harfield : There was an allocation under the budgeting arrangements.
Senator XENOPHON: How big was that allocation? Can somebody tell me?
Mr Logan : I am not aware of it.
CHAIR: Who runs the books at this bloody place?
Mr Logan : I do.
CHAIR: And you do not know what is in the books?
Mr Logan : I do know what is in the books. In the case of this particular payment, I have not been privy to the details.
And;
CHAIR: Doesn't that worry you as the boss of the books that you do not know what is going on?
Mr Logan : We have obviously a number of expenses. In this case, I have not looked into the specifics of that particular payment. The payment was arranged before I arrived in the job. I have no doubt that I will be looking into it in detail.
CHAIR: Mr Russell flicked a lot of the responsibility away from himself to this Mr Clark on how you spent $300,000 or something travelling around the world first-class with the cook and sipping wine. This Mr Clark was the keeper of all the financial secrets in the finish. The person independently standing at the back of the room could say because you do not know that he might have got a shut-up deal to get out of the place before he blew the bloody whistle. How do we know? We are sitting here thinking: this is very strange as it was with the credit card fraud. As I said at that hearing, you have a responsibility under the Crimes Act to report it.
Mr Logan : Understood.
Mr Harfield : We have just had advice that any agreement is actually subject to legal professional privilege. As a result of that, I am happy to take advice on that and take it on notice.
CHAIR: This is Mr Hood's advice to you, is it?
Mr Harfield : This is the information that has been provided to me that—
CHAIR: He is a cunning old dog, this man.
Oh Sir Anus, you really are a clever cookie aren't you? Secret salaries, bonuses, payouts. Some so secretive that not even the current CFO and CEO even fully know!!!
I am hoping that in the wash up from all of this that the entire Board be called before the Senate. Just when I was starting to wonder if there was anything more putrid than CAsA, along comes ASA.......
In the words of P2, MTF!
Senator STERLE: So they are both directors on the board of ICCPM. Airservices Australia, via the taxpayer, is paying Mr Bradford $1 million to negotiate with his mate, who is also the boss of Thales—and this does not look murky?
Mr Harfield : Senator, as I said—
CHAIR: You have a straight face.
Senator STERLE: Are you serious?
Mr Harfield : Senator, as I said—
Senator STERLE: How do I get this gig?
Senator BULLOCK: It is all disclosed, so it must be okay. I think that is their evidence.
Senator STERLE: I cannot believe it!
And;
Senator STERLE: So what are you suggesting? If we want to get the root of how it was all done, we should have the board and the chairman in front of us? Is that what we should be doing? It took you three goes to come out and say you could not quite maybe lock in the whole board. This is what has given us some problems with Airservices before. We have all played the game in Senate estimates. We know that, the more questions we ask, the more answers you can come up with. All we want is the simple truth, a simple yes or no. Am I right that you have confirmed with me that you cannot guarantee that the board absolutely knew of the interlocking relationships between ICCPM since 2012 and Mr Jenkins as a director—
And;
CHAIR: You have had some pretty dramatic, shall we say, events in Airservices and you have lost, in recent times, Mr Russell's replacement. You have lost your chief financial officer, Mr Clarke, have you not?
Mr Harfield : That is right.
CHAIR: He got handed what I would call the 'shit sandwich' on all the financial stuff that went wrong, and Mr Russell went to heaven. What sort of package did he get when he left?
Mr Harfield : I am not privy to any of the confidential or commercial arrangements.
CHAIR: Who is? You are the boss but you do not know.
And;
Senator STERLE: For those of the uninitiated that are sitting around listening to this, this seems very strange that there is a flurry of departures by senior people from Airservices and we know there were some serious pays. I think Ms Staib told us it was nearly $700,000 or whatever. I am sure the CFO was not on a truckies wage. But you have come here today, you know we are going to talk about redundancies and bonuses, and no-one at Airservices thought, 'How far do you think the senators might want to go back?' No-one from Airservices may have thought—and I am looking at you, Mr Harfield, as CEO—'Crikey, we better arm ourselves with some logical pieces of information that will go to why people left, how much they got, the packages, why they got it.' You do not have that information?
This is absolutely appalling and it is a trend being set with Airservices that is actually like pulling teeth. I was hoping, Mr Harfield, you would be a new broom but you are not setting me on fire.
And;
Senator XENOPHON: But do you not want to know about the size of this discretionary fund the board may have? Do we know how big this discretionary fund is that the board may have?
Mr Harfield : There was an allocation under the budgeting arrangements.
Senator XENOPHON: How big was that allocation? Can somebody tell me?
Mr Logan : I am not aware of it.
CHAIR: Who runs the books at this bloody place?
Mr Logan : I do.
CHAIR: And you do not know what is in the books?
Mr Logan : I do know what is in the books. In the case of this particular payment, I have not been privy to the details.
And;
CHAIR: Doesn't that worry you as the boss of the books that you do not know what is going on?
Mr Logan : We have obviously a number of expenses. In this case, I have not looked into the specifics of that particular payment. The payment was arranged before I arrived in the job. I have no doubt that I will be looking into it in detail.
CHAIR: Mr Russell flicked a lot of the responsibility away from himself to this Mr Clark on how you spent $300,000 or something travelling around the world first-class with the cook and sipping wine. This Mr Clark was the keeper of all the financial secrets in the finish. The person independently standing at the back of the room could say because you do not know that he might have got a shut-up deal to get out of the place before he blew the bloody whistle. How do we know? We are sitting here thinking: this is very strange as it was with the credit card fraud. As I said at that hearing, you have a responsibility under the Crimes Act to report it.
Mr Logan : Understood.
Mr Harfield : We have just had advice that any agreement is actually subject to legal professional privilege. As a result of that, I am happy to take advice on that and take it on notice.
CHAIR: This is Mr Hood's advice to you, is it?
Mr Harfield : This is the information that has been provided to me that—
CHAIR: He is a cunning old dog, this man.
Oh Sir Anus, you really are a clever cookie aren't you? Secret salaries, bonuses, payouts. Some so secretive that not even the current CFO and CEO even fully know!!!
I am hoping that in the wash up from all of this that the entire Board be called before the Senate. Just when I was starting to wonder if there was anything more putrid than CAsA, along comes ASA.......
In the words of P2, MTF!