The Comrade tells everyone to read between the lines in this ABC story when he says that redeploying Rob Tonkin was the cheaper option rather than actually dismissing him or empolying him correctly but he doesn’t come out and say Gardening Leave.
But Mr Stanhope says the cost of sidelining Mr Tonkin would have been greater had he opted for a direct dismissal.
“I had no grounds on which to dismiss him and he might have sued at enormous cost to the ACT taxpayer,” he said.
“Look we can shadow box here around this. You know how the world works, I know how the world works.
“This is an artifice, it’s a confected set of objections to a difficult management situation.”
Difficult management situations require some real leadership and decisions but we’re not going to get that anytime soon.