Section: 2.4.2 Transactions by some Ministers and others.
Part: (e)
(viii) Pabbay Pty. Limited
Pabbay Pty. Limited was incorporated in May 1981. Its shareholders and directors were Hinze’s solicitor, Punch, and one of his partners, Ian Alexander McDonald Short. It became the trustee of the Pabbay Property Trust, in which Kanni Pty. Ltd. held 50 units and the other 50 units were held by Keelbrook Limited on behalf of a Hong Kong businessman. There is nothing to indicate that Hinze or any of his interests made any subscription to Pabbay Pty. Limited or the Pabbay Property Trust or assumed any responsibility for the borrowings of either. In September, 1981, Pabbay Pty. Limited paid $200,000 to Kanni Pty. Ltd. A letter written at the time indicated that the sum was a loan to be repaid with interest at 15% per annum on 21 September 1983. On 22 September, 1981, the directors of Pabbay Pty. Limited resolved that Mrs. Hinze be the sole signatory on its bank account. On 14 October, 1981, Pabbay Pty. Limited paid a further $25,000 to Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. On 1 December, 1981, Pabbay Pty. Limited paid a further $50,000 to Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. On 17 April, 1982, Pabbay Pty. Limited purchased 7 industrial units from Lowanna Pty. Ltd. for a total outlay of $51 1,204 including stamp duty and other charges. Lowanna had been unable to sell the units and had advertised them throughout Australia. After Pabbay Pty. Limited purchased the units, the interest of Kanni Pty. Ltd. in the Pabbay Property Trust was transferred to Keelbrook Limited. Pabbay Pty. Limited did not sell the units until 16 September 1985, when it received $220,000, a loss of almost $300,000. Pabbay Pty. Limited later went into voluntary liquidation, and there is nothing which indicates any repayment to it by Kanni Pty. Ltd.
(ix) Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd.
On 2 April, 1980, a Victorian, Roger John Burt, wrote to Mrs. Hinze (then Ms McQuillan) to inform her that her application for a loan of $80,000 had been granted subject to certain conditions. Those conditions included that the loan would be in a form of “venture” for three years and would attract no interest, and that it was to be used to finance exploration and testing for builders’ sand on Waverley Park Stud, with Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. entitled to a $0.30 cent royalty per ton of sand mined. There was a request for a second mortgage as security and for monthly reports with results of exploration testing of the land for sand or gravel suitable for extraction and commercial sale. On 14 April, 1980, Burt wrote again to Mrs. Hinze, this time acknowledging that the $80,000 was paid on a “totalling non-recourse basis’’, and that it was to be treated “notionally” as a contribution to equity by Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. in the venture with repayment to be made on a royalty basis and pre-taxed profits from the venture to be shared equally. The request for a second mortgage was waived. In his evidence to this Inquiry, Hinze stated that he did not know Burt, that he did not know whether Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. was acting as principal or agent, and that if it was acting as agent, he did not know who was its principal. Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. received $80,000 from Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. on 3 July 1980. No areas were designated for testing, no reports were made, and no accounts for the joint venture were kept. A letter to Burt dated 14 March, 1984 was produced in evidence. It advised that exploration had come to an end, that samples of gravel had failed to meet specifications, and that it had been decided “to abandon our joint project and sell the associated equipment which we believe will yield in the vicinity of $5,500”. On 18 June, Burt replied advising that Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. had taken “the appropriate steps in our accounts to reflect the failure of this project”. The sum of $80,000 was written off in the books of Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. on 30 June 1984. There is no indication of there having been any communication between Hinze or any of his interests and Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. between July 1980 and March 1984. The letter dated 14 March, 1984, which Mrs. Hinze sent to Burt was signed with her maiden name, “F.J. McQuillan”. Mr. and Mrs. Hinze have been mamed since 27 June, 1981. (x) Syd Truscott and C.T. Simmons In March 1981, Mrs. Hinze deposited a bank cheque of $1 1,480 and $35,000 in cash into the bank account of Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. and the deposits were recorded in the books and records of the Hinze group as a loan of $45,000 from Syd Truscott. In the same month, Mrs. Hinze deposited a bank cheque for $30,000 into the bank account of Lowanna Pty. Ltd., and the deposit was recorded in the books and records of the Hinze group as a loan of $30,000.00 from C.T. Simmons.
An uncle of Mrs. Hinze, Lawrence Kirwan McQuillan, was a pensioner who died in 1986. For the last years of his life he lived at Waverley Park Stud with Mr. and Mrs. Hinze. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hinze knew a Syd Truscott nor a C.T. Simmons and there is no record of either name in Commonwealth or Queensland electoral office records from 1980 to 1986, nor any record of either of them having died between 1981 and October 1988 according to Queensland and New South Wales records. In 1988, Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. informed the Australian Tax Office that there had been no recent contact with Truscott, that the amount of the loan had been transferred to Mrs. Hinze’s loan account, and that she had assumed liability to the creditor. According to the internal records of the Hinze group, the loan of $45,000 by Truscott had been reduced to $30,000 by 30 June 1984 and had been extinguished by 30 June 1985. In a written memorandum to the Australian Tax Office, Lowanna Pty. Ltd. stated:
“The loan’ (by C.T. Simmons) ‘was arranged by Mrs. Hinze’s uncle. At a later
stage when the company could not afford repayment Mrs. Hinze’s uncle advised
that he had made arrangements for satisfaction of the loan. Thus the loan was
written off in the company records”.
The internal records of the Hinze group indicate that the debt owed by Lowanna Pty. Ltd. to C.T. Simmons had been forgiven by 30 June 1985. Evidence to this Commission by Hinze supported by the statutory declaration of Mrs. Hinze was to the effect that her uncle had provided the bank cheques and cash originally either from his own funds or from borrowings which he had organized and, presumably, they were repaid. It was said that he had used the names Syd Truscott and C.T. Simmons so that Mr. and Mrs. Hinze would not be embarrassed by his generosity.
The following is the text of a note written by Mrs. Hinze to the accountant employed by the Hinze group:
“Marilyn, please set each loan out on a separate piece of paper-company on top
then list particulars as you understand them. We can then discuss with Bob
Tuesday. We’ll leave arrangement that he can come here at this stage. Russ will
make the 2 calls re Nikraine and Nathan this arvo. We hope to be back by
lunchtime. Mr. Truscott can be friend of my uncle. I think making Simmons as well could be a bit willing?”
(xi) Geoffrey Henry Burchill
Burcn.11 is an engineer and town planner who has been commercially associated with Hinze and has known Kornhauser since the late 1970’s. In late 1985 and early 1986, Burchill obtained options to acquire approximately 400 hectares of land in the Albert Shire and lodged an application for the rezoning of approximately 150 hectares intended to be developed as a residential canal estate. However, Burchill was unable to arrange finance for the project. The evidence before this Commission was generally to the effect that there was an oral, informal arrangement that Mrs. Hinze was entitled to half any profit made by Burchill if finance was arranged through Hinze. There were differences in the detail of the respective accounts given of the arrangements. According to the evidence, the extent of Hinze’s involvement appears to have been to suggest to Kornhauser that he finance Burchill’s development and reintroduce Burchill to Kornhauser. By a contract dated 4 September 1987, it was agreed that part of the land would be transferred for $1.3 million to Alabar Pty. Ltd., a company owned and controlled by Kornhauser and his brother, and that it would obtain necessary rezonings and approvals with a view to further development of the land and its resale. Burchill was to receive 50% of the profit realized from the sale of the land.On 26 October, 1987, Burchill wrote to Punch, who was also the solicitor for Mr. and Mrs. Hinze, asking him to draft a form of agreement. The letter is in the following terms:
“Re Alabar Pty. Ltd.
The writer confirms his previous verbal enquiry about the possible participation of other parties in his interest in current dealings with Alabar Pty. Ltd., Smith and Davidson properties, Hope Island. The attached copy of an existing agreement with Alabar indicates the arrangement to be shared. Would you please draw up a Form of Agreement to be used.”
In a statutory declaration dated 20 November 1988 which he provided to this Inquiry, Burchill said: “When I wrote this letter I was conveying to the Solicitor that a relationship had already been established between myself and Mr. Hinze which would allow Hinze the right to participate in the profits of the Joint Venture between Alabar Pty. Ltd. and myself as long as Kornhauser, the financier, could satisfy my requirements. I was indicating further that Hinze was in effect associated only with the Kornhauser participation in the subject land, and if, for any reason, Kornhauser’s participation ended, then Hinze would not participate in the profits associated with the subject land.” Mr. Burchill’s enigmatic letter is the only document bearing a date before the end of 1987 which might bear upon the entitlement of Hinze or his wife or any of their interests to participate in Burchill’s share of the profits from the development. On 28 October, 1987, Alabar Pty. Ltd., lodged an application for the rezoning of the remainder of the land the subject of the contract between it and Burchill dated 4 September. By early November, 1987, Alabar Pty. Ltd. had negotiated the sale of the land to Shinko Australia Pty. Ltd., subject to rezoning of canal development approvals. The Order in Council affecting the rezoning requested by Alabar Pty. Ltd. was gazetted on 17 December 1987. Hinze had been the Minister for Local Government until about 7 December 1987. In February 1988, Alabar Pty. Ltd. transferred the land to Shinko Australia Pty. Ltd. for $21 million. Its nett profit was something in excess of $7.5 million. A document executed by Burchill and Essvee Pty. Ltd., was produced to the Commissioner of Stamp Duties on 3 March, 1988. The document inaccurately recites that Essvee Pty. Ltd. was party to Burchill’s original interest in the land and foresaw with Burchill the viability of acquiring and developing it, and assisted Burchill in his “dealings with the original proprietors of the Coomera land in order for contracts to acquire the same to be entered into”. Further, the document is inaccurately dated 18 January 1988, but was not entered into until early in March. Under the document, Burchill was obliged to pay Essvee Pty. Ltd. “one half of the net profit” which he had received “pursuant to the arrangements which exist between the parties”. On 7 March, 1988, $3,768,278 was deposited in an account conducted by Burchill with Tricontinental Corporation Ltd., a merchant bank which was also at the time a major lender to Hinze. On 8 March, 1988, Burchill authorized Tricontinental Corporation Ltd. to transfer the sum of $1,884,139 to Essvee Pty. Ltd., and on the following day that amount was deposited in an account with Tricontinental Corporation Ltd. in the name of Essvee Pty. Ltd. Thereafter, the money was paid by Essvee Pty. Ltd. to Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd.'
(f) Lane
Lane was sworn in as a constable in the Queensland Police Force on 31 January, 1955. His 16 years service included three years in the Special Branch during which he attained the rank of senior constable, and service in the Consorting Squad. He was one of the police officers represented before the National Hotel Royal Commission. From his police service, he was friendly with many present and former police officers, including Lewis, Murphy and Herbert. He also had a wide circle of other acquaintances, including some whom he had met in the course of his police duties, such as Robinson, the owner of Austral Amusements, purveyor of in-line machines. In July, 1971, Lane was elected to Parliament as the Liberal Member for Merthyr, the electorate which includes Fortitude Valley, and he resigned from the Police Force. On 23 December, 1980, Lane became Minister for Transport, a portfolio which he retained until December 1987, apart from a three month period after the coalition parties split in August 1983. After he was re-elected in the State elections held in October 1983, Lane changed to the National Party and in November regained the Transport portfolio. In December 1987, after the incumbent became Premier during the course of this Inquiry, Lane returned to the back-bench. Herbert gave evidence to this Inquiry, that Lane had been paid corrupt moneys, but Lane swore that this was not so. However, as Lane appreciated, an examination of his financial affairs revealed that the assets he owns, some with his wife, and the expenditures which they made, as returned to the Commissioner of Taxation were incompatible with his earnings and raised a possible inference that he had been in receipt of moneys from some other source. Lane made some reference in his evidence to private benefactors, including a cash loan by an acquaintance who has since died and cash received from winning bets which were placed on his behalf, but substantially his explanation was based upon inaccurate claims to income tax deductions for expenditures which had not been made and the practices which he adopted to electoral campaign funds and his ministerial expense account. Before 1983, Ministers were required to itemise and return their expenditure under a number of headings, including hotel expenses, travel costs and incidental expenses. In mid 1983, Cabinet decided that some travel costs and some other expenditure incurred by Ministers and their support staff were to be included in departmental expenditure, with the result that fewer 'details of ministerial expenses would emerge for public scrutiny and possible criticism. In mid 1987, the Treasurer's instructions covering ministerial expenses were revoked, after which there was no longer any requirement to table details of ministers' expenses in Parliament. Shortly stated, Lane asserted in his evidence to this Inquiry that he used campaign funds for private purposes and for mixed private and electoral purposes, and that he, and according to him numerous other present and former Ministers, did the same thing with funds available to them through their ministerial expense accounts, In this connection he named a number of his former colleagues, who denied his assertions by statutory declarations. As Lane saw the position, the circumstance that others acted as he did, or that he believed that they did so, justified what he did, particularly in any marginal cases where it was not totally clear that an expenditure was for a private purpose. Further, there seemed to be a suggestion of implicit community approval by reference to the political cliche that politicians are judged by the electorate and that he and the Government had been consistently voted for over many years. However, entirely apart from any issue related to electoral boundaries, it seems somewhat artificial to contend that an electorate which is deprived of information can be taken to have condoned that of which it is unaware.
Part: (e)
(viii) Pabbay Pty. Limited
Pabbay Pty. Limited was incorporated in May 1981. Its shareholders and directors were Hinze’s solicitor, Punch, and one of his partners, Ian Alexander McDonald Short. It became the trustee of the Pabbay Property Trust, in which Kanni Pty. Ltd. held 50 units and the other 50 units were held by Keelbrook Limited on behalf of a Hong Kong businessman. There is nothing to indicate that Hinze or any of his interests made any subscription to Pabbay Pty. Limited or the Pabbay Property Trust or assumed any responsibility for the borrowings of either. In September, 1981, Pabbay Pty. Limited paid $200,000 to Kanni Pty. Ltd. A letter written at the time indicated that the sum was a loan to be repaid with interest at 15% per annum on 21 September 1983. On 22 September, 1981, the directors of Pabbay Pty. Limited resolved that Mrs. Hinze be the sole signatory on its bank account. On 14 October, 1981, Pabbay Pty. Limited paid a further $25,000 to Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. On 1 December, 1981, Pabbay Pty. Limited paid a further $50,000 to Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. On 17 April, 1982, Pabbay Pty. Limited purchased 7 industrial units from Lowanna Pty. Ltd. for a total outlay of $51 1,204 including stamp duty and other charges. Lowanna had been unable to sell the units and had advertised them throughout Australia. After Pabbay Pty. Limited purchased the units, the interest of Kanni Pty. Ltd. in the Pabbay Property Trust was transferred to Keelbrook Limited. Pabbay Pty. Limited did not sell the units until 16 September 1985, when it received $220,000, a loss of almost $300,000. Pabbay Pty. Limited later went into voluntary liquidation, and there is nothing which indicates any repayment to it by Kanni Pty. Ltd.
(ix) Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd.
On 2 April, 1980, a Victorian, Roger John Burt, wrote to Mrs. Hinze (then Ms McQuillan) to inform her that her application for a loan of $80,000 had been granted subject to certain conditions. Those conditions included that the loan would be in a form of “venture” for three years and would attract no interest, and that it was to be used to finance exploration and testing for builders’ sand on Waverley Park Stud, with Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. entitled to a $0.30 cent royalty per ton of sand mined. There was a request for a second mortgage as security and for monthly reports with results of exploration testing of the land for sand or gravel suitable for extraction and commercial sale. On 14 April, 1980, Burt wrote again to Mrs. Hinze, this time acknowledging that the $80,000 was paid on a “totalling non-recourse basis’’, and that it was to be treated “notionally” as a contribution to equity by Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. in the venture with repayment to be made on a royalty basis and pre-taxed profits from the venture to be shared equally. The request for a second mortgage was waived. In his evidence to this Inquiry, Hinze stated that he did not know Burt, that he did not know whether Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. was acting as principal or agent, and that if it was acting as agent, he did not know who was its principal. Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. received $80,000 from Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. on 3 July 1980. No areas were designated for testing, no reports were made, and no accounts for the joint venture were kept. A letter to Burt dated 14 March, 1984 was produced in evidence. It advised that exploration had come to an end, that samples of gravel had failed to meet specifications, and that it had been decided “to abandon our joint project and sell the associated equipment which we believe will yield in the vicinity of $5,500”. On 18 June, Burt replied advising that Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. had taken “the appropriate steps in our accounts to reflect the failure of this project”. The sum of $80,000 was written off in the books of Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. on 30 June 1984. There is no indication of there having been any communication between Hinze or any of his interests and Cowrie Corporation Pty. Ltd. between July 1980 and March 1984. The letter dated 14 March, 1984, which Mrs. Hinze sent to Burt was signed with her maiden name, “F.J. McQuillan”. Mr. and Mrs. Hinze have been mamed since 27 June, 1981. (x) Syd Truscott and C.T. Simmons In March 1981, Mrs. Hinze deposited a bank cheque of $1 1,480 and $35,000 in cash into the bank account of Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. and the deposits were recorded in the books and records of the Hinze group as a loan of $45,000 from Syd Truscott. In the same month, Mrs. Hinze deposited a bank cheque for $30,000 into the bank account of Lowanna Pty. Ltd., and the deposit was recorded in the books and records of the Hinze group as a loan of $30,000.00 from C.T. Simmons.
An uncle of Mrs. Hinze, Lawrence Kirwan McQuillan, was a pensioner who died in 1986. For the last years of his life he lived at Waverley Park Stud with Mr. and Mrs. Hinze. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hinze knew a Syd Truscott nor a C.T. Simmons and there is no record of either name in Commonwealth or Queensland electoral office records from 1980 to 1986, nor any record of either of them having died between 1981 and October 1988 according to Queensland and New South Wales records. In 1988, Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd. informed the Australian Tax Office that there had been no recent contact with Truscott, that the amount of the loan had been transferred to Mrs. Hinze’s loan account, and that she had assumed liability to the creditor. According to the internal records of the Hinze group, the loan of $45,000 by Truscott had been reduced to $30,000 by 30 June 1984 and had been extinguished by 30 June 1985. In a written memorandum to the Australian Tax Office, Lowanna Pty. Ltd. stated:
“The loan’ (by C.T. Simmons) ‘was arranged by Mrs. Hinze’s uncle. At a later
stage when the company could not afford repayment Mrs. Hinze’s uncle advised
that he had made arrangements for satisfaction of the loan. Thus the loan was
written off in the company records”.
The internal records of the Hinze group indicate that the debt owed by Lowanna Pty. Ltd. to C.T. Simmons had been forgiven by 30 June 1985. Evidence to this Commission by Hinze supported by the statutory declaration of Mrs. Hinze was to the effect that her uncle had provided the bank cheques and cash originally either from his own funds or from borrowings which he had organized and, presumably, they were repaid. It was said that he had used the names Syd Truscott and C.T. Simmons so that Mr. and Mrs. Hinze would not be embarrassed by his generosity.
The following is the text of a note written by Mrs. Hinze to the accountant employed by the Hinze group:
“Marilyn, please set each loan out on a separate piece of paper-company on top
then list particulars as you understand them. We can then discuss with Bob
Tuesday. We’ll leave arrangement that he can come here at this stage. Russ will
make the 2 calls re Nikraine and Nathan this arvo. We hope to be back by
lunchtime. Mr. Truscott can be friend of my uncle. I think making Simmons as well could be a bit willing?”
(xi) Geoffrey Henry Burchill
Burcn.11 is an engineer and town planner who has been commercially associated with Hinze and has known Kornhauser since the late 1970’s. In late 1985 and early 1986, Burchill obtained options to acquire approximately 400 hectares of land in the Albert Shire and lodged an application for the rezoning of approximately 150 hectares intended to be developed as a residential canal estate. However, Burchill was unable to arrange finance for the project. The evidence before this Commission was generally to the effect that there was an oral, informal arrangement that Mrs. Hinze was entitled to half any profit made by Burchill if finance was arranged through Hinze. There were differences in the detail of the respective accounts given of the arrangements. According to the evidence, the extent of Hinze’s involvement appears to have been to suggest to Kornhauser that he finance Burchill’s development and reintroduce Burchill to Kornhauser. By a contract dated 4 September 1987, it was agreed that part of the land would be transferred for $1.3 million to Alabar Pty. Ltd., a company owned and controlled by Kornhauser and his brother, and that it would obtain necessary rezonings and approvals with a view to further development of the land and its resale. Burchill was to receive 50% of the profit realized from the sale of the land.On 26 October, 1987, Burchill wrote to Punch, who was also the solicitor for Mr. and Mrs. Hinze, asking him to draft a form of agreement. The letter is in the following terms:
“Re Alabar Pty. Ltd.
The writer confirms his previous verbal enquiry about the possible participation of other parties in his interest in current dealings with Alabar Pty. Ltd., Smith and Davidson properties, Hope Island. The attached copy of an existing agreement with Alabar indicates the arrangement to be shared. Would you please draw up a Form of Agreement to be used.”
In a statutory declaration dated 20 November 1988 which he provided to this Inquiry, Burchill said: “When I wrote this letter I was conveying to the Solicitor that a relationship had already been established between myself and Mr. Hinze which would allow Hinze the right to participate in the profits of the Joint Venture between Alabar Pty. Ltd. and myself as long as Kornhauser, the financier, could satisfy my requirements. I was indicating further that Hinze was in effect associated only with the Kornhauser participation in the subject land, and if, for any reason, Kornhauser’s participation ended, then Hinze would not participate in the profits associated with the subject land.” Mr. Burchill’s enigmatic letter is the only document bearing a date before the end of 1987 which might bear upon the entitlement of Hinze or his wife or any of their interests to participate in Burchill’s share of the profits from the development. On 28 October, 1987, Alabar Pty. Ltd., lodged an application for the rezoning of the remainder of the land the subject of the contract between it and Burchill dated 4 September. By early November, 1987, Alabar Pty. Ltd. had negotiated the sale of the land to Shinko Australia Pty. Ltd., subject to rezoning of canal development approvals. The Order in Council affecting the rezoning requested by Alabar Pty. Ltd. was gazetted on 17 December 1987. Hinze had been the Minister for Local Government until about 7 December 1987. In February 1988, Alabar Pty. Ltd. transferred the land to Shinko Australia Pty. Ltd. for $21 million. Its nett profit was something in excess of $7.5 million. A document executed by Burchill and Essvee Pty. Ltd., was produced to the Commissioner of Stamp Duties on 3 March, 1988. The document inaccurately recites that Essvee Pty. Ltd. was party to Burchill’s original interest in the land and foresaw with Burchill the viability of acquiring and developing it, and assisted Burchill in his “dealings with the original proprietors of the Coomera land in order for contracts to acquire the same to be entered into”. Further, the document is inaccurately dated 18 January 1988, but was not entered into until early in March. Under the document, Burchill was obliged to pay Essvee Pty. Ltd. “one half of the net profit” which he had received “pursuant to the arrangements which exist between the parties”. On 7 March, 1988, $3,768,278 was deposited in an account conducted by Burchill with Tricontinental Corporation Ltd., a merchant bank which was also at the time a major lender to Hinze. On 8 March, 1988, Burchill authorized Tricontinental Corporation Ltd. to transfer the sum of $1,884,139 to Essvee Pty. Ltd., and on the following day that amount was deposited in an account with Tricontinental Corporation Ltd. in the name of Essvee Pty. Ltd. Thereafter, the money was paid by Essvee Pty. Ltd. to Waverley Park Stud Pty. Ltd.'
(f) Lane
Lane was sworn in as a constable in the Queensland Police Force on 31 January, 1955. His 16 years service included three years in the Special Branch during which he attained the rank of senior constable, and service in the Consorting Squad. He was one of the police officers represented before the National Hotel Royal Commission. From his police service, he was friendly with many present and former police officers, including Lewis, Murphy and Herbert. He also had a wide circle of other acquaintances, including some whom he had met in the course of his police duties, such as Robinson, the owner of Austral Amusements, purveyor of in-line machines. In July, 1971, Lane was elected to Parliament as the Liberal Member for Merthyr, the electorate which includes Fortitude Valley, and he resigned from the Police Force. On 23 December, 1980, Lane became Minister for Transport, a portfolio which he retained until December 1987, apart from a three month period after the coalition parties split in August 1983. After he was re-elected in the State elections held in October 1983, Lane changed to the National Party and in November regained the Transport portfolio. In December 1987, after the incumbent became Premier during the course of this Inquiry, Lane returned to the back-bench. Herbert gave evidence to this Inquiry, that Lane had been paid corrupt moneys, but Lane swore that this was not so. However, as Lane appreciated, an examination of his financial affairs revealed that the assets he owns, some with his wife, and the expenditures which they made, as returned to the Commissioner of Taxation were incompatible with his earnings and raised a possible inference that he had been in receipt of moneys from some other source. Lane made some reference in his evidence to private benefactors, including a cash loan by an acquaintance who has since died and cash received from winning bets which were placed on his behalf, but substantially his explanation was based upon inaccurate claims to income tax deductions for expenditures which had not been made and the practices which he adopted to electoral campaign funds and his ministerial expense account. Before 1983, Ministers were required to itemise and return their expenditure under a number of headings, including hotel expenses, travel costs and incidental expenses. In mid 1983, Cabinet decided that some travel costs and some other expenditure incurred by Ministers and their support staff were to be included in departmental expenditure, with the result that fewer 'details of ministerial expenses would emerge for public scrutiny and possible criticism. In mid 1987, the Treasurer's instructions covering ministerial expenses were revoked, after which there was no longer any requirement to table details of ministers' expenses in Parliament. Shortly stated, Lane asserted in his evidence to this Inquiry that he used campaign funds for private purposes and for mixed private and electoral purposes, and that he, and according to him numerous other present and former Ministers, did the same thing with funds available to them through their ministerial expense accounts, In this connection he named a number of his former colleagues, who denied his assertions by statutory declarations. As Lane saw the position, the circumstance that others acted as he did, or that he believed that they did so, justified what he did, particularly in any marginal cases where it was not totally clear that an expenditure was for a private purpose. Further, there seemed to be a suggestion of implicit community approval by reference to the political cliche that politicians are judged by the electorate and that he and the Government had been consistently voted for over many years. However, entirely apart from any issue related to electoral boundaries, it seems somewhat artificial to contend that an electorate which is deprived of information can be taken to have condoned that of which it is unaware.
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