been founded by Sir Albert Jennings, father to Doug Jennings, the National Party member for Southport. One of Jennings’ brothers also worked for the company. The family connection had forced Jennings to make a personal explanation to parliament the year before.
‘When I left school I joined AVJennings construction company,’ he told the House. ‘My father founded the company 50 years ago in 1932. I worked for the company for 13 years before deciding to go out on my own … My brother is a director of Jennings Industries, but I make it clear once again that I have no physical or financial involvement with that Australian-owned public company, although I am certainly proud of its achievements.’
During the debates over the Bill, Jennings would clash with the Treasurer and minister responsible for the casino, Dr Llew Edwards. Edwards accused Jennings of attacking the Casino Control Bill.
In turn, Jennings did not agree with aspects of the Bill, nor with Edwards’ ‘dictatorial powers’ in relation to safeguarding the casino against corruption, something Jennings felt would ‘create the reverse situation and provide a perfect recipe for graft and corruption and frighten off investors’. The argument underlined the now open warfare between the coalition partners.
As for Edwards, his zealotry in ensuring the new casino remain corruption-free may have been linked to what he was observing behind closed doors. He noticed that the issue of ‘political donations’ to the National Party was getting out of hand. Word was rife, too, that ministers were being asked favours in exchange for money.
Other members, such as Nev Hewitt (NP, Mackenzie), Ron Camm (NP, Whitsunday) and Fred Campbell (Lib, Aspley) were also concerned. The National Party system, Edwards believed, was severely flawed. ‘I think they were very loose in the way they ran that side,’ says Edwards. ‘In the Liberal Party, we have a … and it wasn’t me who did this, it was Tom [Hiley, former Queensland Treasurer] did this years before – that if a minister received … an offer of funds … they expected their resignation, and we all adhered to that view.
‘The moment we were offered some money for something, you would have to report it to your leader, and I had a couple of very nasty, or very attractive offers, which I declared very, very quickly and we excluded them on the casino decision.
‘There were, you know, a large number of people who had applied for the casino licence in Queensland, and that was one of my worst periods ever.’
Edwards also recalls being approached by police who were concerned about corruption in the force, but none would commit anything to paper. Edwards says that time and again he went to successive police ministers with concerns he’d picked up in the course of his work, and consistently hit dead ends.
‘In the police force it seemed as if … something went in, [and] it never sort of came out, and so our job, I guess, was to, you know if we did hear a bad story, to please let our colleagues know and they’d say, “They tell me it’s fixed up anyway. It was a bit of a misunderstanding.” I probably feel that perhaps a lot of us had too much confidence in the integrity of the police.
‘People feared that if they did go public they’d be victimised. I am certain in retrospect that quite a bit of that did go on, and so a knowledge of some query, call it corruption, just didn’t go very far.’
All That Glitters
Nigel Powell had been hitting a brick wall with much of his investigative work for the Licensing Branch. Many of the reports he was submitting to his boss, Graeme Parker, had been ignored. In late May 1983 he was telephoned at home before his shift. It was work. They needed him to ‘dress up’ appropriately for a job on the Gold Coast. It was a strange request, but Powell did as he was told and put on a three-piece suit. Powell was wary of the Gold Coast. He had working girls as informants down
‘When I left school I joined AVJennings construction company,’ he told the House. ‘My father founded the company 50 years ago in 1932. I worked for the company for 13 years before deciding to go out on my own … My brother is a director of Jennings Industries, but I make it clear once again that I have no physical or financial involvement with that Australian-owned public company, although I am certainly proud of its achievements.’
During the debates over the Bill, Jennings would clash with the Treasurer and minister responsible for the casino, Dr Llew Edwards. Edwards accused Jennings of attacking the Casino Control Bill.
In turn, Jennings did not agree with aspects of the Bill, nor with Edwards’ ‘dictatorial powers’ in relation to safeguarding the casino against corruption, something Jennings felt would ‘create the reverse situation and provide a perfect recipe for graft and corruption and frighten off investors’. The argument underlined the now open warfare between the coalition partners.
As for Edwards, his zealotry in ensuring the new casino remain corruption-free may have been linked to what he was observing behind closed doors. He noticed that the issue of ‘political donations’ to the National Party was getting out of hand. Word was rife, too, that ministers were being asked favours in exchange for money.
Other members, such as Nev Hewitt (NP, Mackenzie), Ron Camm (NP, Whitsunday) and Fred Campbell (Lib, Aspley) were also concerned. The National Party system, Edwards believed, was severely flawed. ‘I think they were very loose in the way they ran that side,’ says Edwards. ‘In the Liberal Party, we have a … and it wasn’t me who did this, it was Tom [Hiley, former Queensland Treasurer] did this years before – that if a minister received … an offer of funds … they expected their resignation, and we all adhered to that view.
‘The moment we were offered some money for something, you would have to report it to your leader, and I had a couple of very nasty, or very attractive offers, which I declared very, very quickly and we excluded them on the casino decision.
‘There were, you know, a large number of people who had applied for the casino licence in Queensland, and that was one of my worst periods ever.’
Edwards also recalls being approached by police who were concerned about corruption in the force, but none would commit anything to paper. Edwards says that time and again he went to successive police ministers with concerns he’d picked up in the course of his work, and consistently hit dead ends.
‘In the police force it seemed as if … something went in, [and] it never sort of came out, and so our job, I guess, was to, you know if we did hear a bad story, to please let our colleagues know and they’d say, “They tell me it’s fixed up anyway. It was a bit of a misunderstanding.” I probably feel that perhaps a lot of us had too much confidence in the integrity of the police.
‘People feared that if they did go public they’d be victimised. I am certain in retrospect that quite a bit of that did go on, and so a knowledge of some query, call it corruption, just didn’t go very far.’
All That Glitters
Nigel Powell had been hitting a brick wall with much of his investigative work for the Licensing Branch. Many of the reports he was submitting to his boss, Graeme Parker, had been ignored. In late May 1983 he was telephoned at home before his shift. It was work. They needed him to ‘dress up’ appropriately for a job on the Gold Coast. It was a strange request, but Powell did as he was told and put on a three-piece suit. Powell was wary of the Gold Coast. He had working girls as informants down
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