Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table a letter signed by Arthur Sinodinos dated 29 August 2011. I understand the government has seen this and agrees.

Leave granted.

I want to refer to Senator Sinodinos's speech on 28 February. He came into the chamber late in the adjournment debate—at 10 past 10, in fact—and made what I thought was a highly unusual set of declarations regarding his involvement in the company Australian Water Holdings. He said:

… the cost of being in public life is, where possible, to make full and frank disclosure. I am disappointed that it took a journalist to remind me of these directorships on this occasion.

This was a speech where he acknowledged he had failed to declare directorships of no fewer than six separate companies. It was an extraordinary speech in that he also went on to say:

… I was shocked and disappointed to learn that a company whose mission I believed in and was passionate about was financially linked to the Obeid family.

It was an extraordinary proposition because the day after he was made chairman of this company arrangements were made for the Obeid family to buy one-third of the company, a company of which he had been a director for two years prior to being on the board of that company. It is quite extraordinary. He went on to say:

I played no role in the awarding of the January 2012 contract to AWH by Sydney Water. I was by then in the Senate and Mr Michael Costa, who succeeded me as chairman, was responsible for securing that agreement. I understand from public statements by New South Wales government ministers that this process was conducted at arm's length between the two parties to the contract, AWH and Sydney Water.

The contract referred to an exclusive 25-year, $500 million deal with state owned Sydney Water—a contract awarded without public tender by the O'Farrell government, contrary to the advice of the New South Wales Solicitor-General. It caused the valuation of Australian Water Holdings to increase by some $65 million—a company which Senator Sinodinos had a claim of a five per cent holding in. He was a major beneficiary of that growth. To claim he had nothing to do with these contractual arrangements is clearly not true. It is not true, because the letter I have tabled today explains how he wrote to the Chairman of Sydney Water on 29 August 2011 seeking an urgent roundtable with the shareholding ministers in Sydney Water.

I find it extraordinary that, in a statement to this Senate about his statements of pecuniary interests he is making as a senator about past actions, he claims not to know anything about these matters. I find it quite incredible that he can explain what appears to be his attendance—and I would like to hear whether my impression is correct—at a meeting with the Premier's Chief of Staff, Mr Peter McConnell, on 28 September 2011 at 10 am, confirmed by email sent the previous day from the CEO of Australian Water Holdings to the Premier's office.

Let us not forget that Senator Sinodinos, as he is now, was very busy at this time. On 26 August 2011 he publicly confirmed he was seeking preselection for the Senate vacancy left by the resignation of Senator Coonan. As late as 12 July you were still opening the buildings of Australian Water Holdings—the Newcastle office, for instance. When you try to give us the impression you know nothing about these matters I find you quite disingenuous. I ask you a simple question: why don't you follow your own advice here and give full and frank disclosure?