[Kharon]

How the Senate 'perceived' the possibility of probity.

Page five: Sterle and Heffernan take us tantalizingly close the ‘nub’ and set up the board for a breach of the ASA Houstoblame defence: it is an interesting construct and for those interested in the finer points, worth reading.  The results of the construct, the realisation that the defence is breached slowly begins to dawn on page 7:-

CHAIR: As a competitive tender, if the $200 million goes on top, does that mean the selection of the tender process was inefficient in that someone else might have been able to do it for less? It appears to me that the proposition that they had an advanced down-the-road program was not true. The curious thing for this committee was the husband and wife on both sides of the fence proposition. Did you think it would have been good to err on the side of caution and say to the husband and wife team, 'You'd better remove yourself from the process'?

There is further development of strategy, Harfwit keeps using the shovel, digging the hole he’s standing in, ever deeper: Sen. Back chimes in with a soothing, soft question or two which exposes the distracted Harfwit flank:- then; the ‘Harfwit Anger Management’ symphony begins, softly, adagietto, at first; becoming allegretto

CHAIR: My advice is that the husband and wife team were involved in the assessment of the process rather than the actual process—is that right?

Mr Harfield: Your advice is incorrect. They had nothing to do with the tender evaluation process, or anything to do with the OneSKY tenderer selection.

CHAIR: So what did they have to do with it?

Mr Harfield: What they were involved in—

CHAIR: They were on both sides of the fence on some issue, I know that. So what was the issue?

Mr Harfield: The issue that you are referring to is the fact that the husband became an employee of Airservices Australia, and during my absence, and acting in my previous role, he signed off an invoice that had his wife's name on it. That was released as part of a freedom of information request; that was the issue that was brought up at the last hearing.

CHAIR: And why was his partner's name on the invoice? Who did she represent?

Mr Harfield: She was the chief executive of the International Centre for Complex Project Management.

CHAIR: I would have thought, for the person independently standing at the back of the room, that that was an issue.

Houstoblame rushes on stage waving the probity, perception cure-all Allen’s flag, as the Chair get the knife a little too close to sensitive areas of the boards anatomy.

Sir Angus Houston: If I could just finished that off, Allens will be looking at that particular issue in their probity review.

Sen. Back then pours a little more soothing oil, offering the time honoured ‘QoN’ get off the hook card, distracting and relaxing the victims while the ‘quiet achiever’, the softly spoken Bullock gets set for the overture.  Nobody’s fool this Bullock fellah –

Page 8. After a short softening up intro, to ensure the intended victims have underestimated his firepower:-

Senator BULLOCK: [The] International Centre for Complex Project Management, which is the organisation that Mr Hind worked for before he came to work for you and of which Mrs Hind has been CEO since July 2014, have had some input into this whole area. And they have been contracted for, I believe, a considerable amount of money—over $4 million?

Sir Angus Houston: No; I do not believe so.

Mr Harfield: Since 2011, it has been $4½ million—$20 million; this is for the contracting of everybody in the—

CHAIR: Everyone.

Sir Angus Houston: Yes; not just the Hinds.

Senator BULLOCK: The last time I checked it was a lot of money.

Sir Angus Houston: I know; that is fine.

Senator BULLOCK: This was what we covered last time. I will just give you an overview so we can get started. The International Centre for Complex Project Management has a board. The chair of that board is the managing director of Thales. So, to the extent that they have been involved in this process, the ultimate beneficiary happens to be the company that the chairman of that board runs. The negotiation of the contract details with the chairman of the board was given to a board member, Mr Harry Bradford, who, I think, is pulling down $1.1 million a year for his efforts. We have the husband and the wife, the board of this centre, the contract ultimately going to the chairman of the board, and the details of the contract being negotiated with that company by a member of the board.

I was asking questions about perception of conflict, because that just seems to be covered, and I would be very interested in reading the Allens report when it comes down, because it seems that you are alert to this, too. But given your heavy involvement in governing and oversight in OneSKY, you would have known all of this and presumably had some measures in place for dealing with it?

Sir Angus Houston: The board shares your concern about the perception issues. But the initial report from Allens has established that it is a perception issue. There is no activity from which people have made money, or classical—

Senator BULLOCK: A few people have made some money.

Sir Angus Houston: The Allens review will look at all of these aspects. The board was not aware of the relationship issues between the Hinds. The board was not aware—

Senator BULLOCK: Sir Angus, I am not a technologically sophisticated individual, and I got this off their website. It was not as if I was the world's greatest detective; I just looked it up.

Straight back to board and it’s cleverly exposed sensitivities.  Bravo Bullock.

Sir Angus Houston: The board had not been exposed to that. The board's job is to ensure that the framework is in place and that management look after the probity issues.

Senator BULLOCK: I would have thought the board would have been quite concerned about probity issues.

Sir Angus Houston: We are. We share exactly the same concerns that you have just verbalised. I have had the Hein situation explained to me by management. I am satisfied that it is unfortunate. It creates a perception of conflict of interest, but in actual fact there is no real conflict of interest there.

Senator BULLOCK: With respect to the role of Mr Hein in the awarding of a contract of this sort, I accept that. It was a loose thread that got pulled that got me to where the real money is.

Sir Angus Houston: Of course it was. It should not have happened. It is one of those things that we were concerned about, but we have looked at it. It is a lesson learned. It will not happen again.

Senator BULLOCK: Ah! That is where I was going to get to, because it is one thing to have Allens come in and say, 'Look, you got lucky. There's nothing to see here.' It is another thing to have the systems in place to ensure that it never happens again.

Sir Angus Houston: Hark back to my opening statement. I said that, essentially, Allens had given us the preliminary report. We are happy about that, but they still have a lot more work to do.

Senator BULLOCK: They have looked beyond the immediate Airservices role, deeper into the interplay of other parties?

Sir Angus Houston: We put together some terms of reference which means that they leave no stone unturned. They will go through the whole probity subject. They will speak to everybody. They will look at every single document, and they will make sure that there are no further problems, no further issues. They will make recommendations, and I promise you that the recommendations that they come up with will be implemented by the board. You will get visibility of the report and the way we implement the recommendations.

From page 8 through to 10, the layers of fancy wrapping are peeled off, subtly, by an astute Bullock using a very sharp knife.  Heffernan steps in and ends the allegro con brio.

CHAIR: Could I just pause you there. Obviously we have been concerned about Airservices for some time. You may recall, or you may not, that I told them to 'grow up' at one of these hearings, because they were obviously blueing with one another down below board level. But from the board's perspective, the Mr and Mrs issue should have rung a bell, down further from the board, that said, 'Hang on.' All human endeavour has failure and we see it every day, but apparently it did not ring the bell—otherwise it would not have happened. I mean, it is sort of basic.

One of my favourites - for the Senate crew.  Bravo.