George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Special Minister of State. Will the minister update the Senate on recent developments in the ongoing scandal of the Australian National Audit Office’s lease of office space in the Canberra property, Centenary House? What do the proposed new leasing arrangements say about the ANAO’s 15-year lease with the former owners of Centenary House which will expire in mid-2008?

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senators on my left will come to order!

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Brandis SC for his question and I note his ongoing pursuit of the Centenary House rort. The Labor Party’s dirty deal in 1992—when, might I add, Mr Beazley was the minister for finance—to lease most of Centenary House to the Australian National Audit Office was nothing more than a blatant rort. It was a grab for taxpayer cash which Commissioner Hunt found to have cost the taxpayer some $42 million more than market rates would have dictated—a rental rip-off unheard of in commercial leasing circles. Commissioner Hunt found:

... the rent it—

that is, the Commonwealth—

has paid for the Audit Office space in Centenary House has always been well over market and will probably remain so.

How right he was, for, as the Australian newspaper reports today, the new owner of Centenary House, Cromwell Corporation, has negotiated a new lease of the property to ANAO at just $385 per square metre. That is just one-third of the previous rate imposed upon the taxpayer by Labor, which will be ratcheted up to $1,300 per square metre before expiry. As Cromwell’s asset manager, Paul McDonnell, said today:

We were aware when we bought the property—

and that was last year—

there was going to be a large rental flow for a period of time, and then that would cease when it went back to market levels ...

If you need any evidence about the nature of the deal which Labor imposed on the Australian taxpayers, you need look no further than the annual report of 2004-05 of John Curtin House Ltd—the ALP entity which until recently owned Centenary House. This report reveals rental income of some $6,700,000 as opposed to borrowing costs, depreciation and property maintenance expenses of just $1.81 million. And yet somehow John Curtin House Ltd only recorded a net profit of just $1 million. So where did the other $3 million go?

I did a bit of research, and guess what they disclosed? Conscience, I thought, had finally got to them, because in their annual report they had a section: donations, $3 million. I thought: how benevolent; how charitable! Finally, conscience has got to them and they are going to make up for this absolute rort. But, of course, I should have known that we were dealing with the Australian Labor Party. So, when I searched further, I thought: why is it that John Curtin House would not disclose to whom the donation was made? So guess to whom the donation was made? And we discover, not from the annual report but from the Australian Electoral Commission reports, that it was made to those opposite—a $3 million donation courtesy of the taxpayer to the Australian Labor Party.

I say this to Mr Beazley and the Labor Party: until such time as they apologise to the people of Australia and repay the $42 million that they owe the Australian taxpayer, every Australian is entitled to believe that if Labor were ever to get back into government they would commit the same sort of rort again. Until such time as they apologise, they will be unfit to govern this great country. (Time expired)

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Robert Ray interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Ray, I have called you to order many times, and I will ask you to cease because your colleague has the call.