CIT Reid. The second Special Report on the contracts scandal focuses on negotiations for the sixth and final contract with Red Rouge Nominees, worth $5 million. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Two high-profile reports from the ACT Integrity Commission have been given to named parties for comment, including a much-awaited second Special Report on corruption allegations relating to Canberra Institute of Technology’s contracts scandal.
The other report is on the investigation into the conduct of Walter Sofronoff KC, who headed the Board of Inquiry into the ACT Criminal Justice System in the wake of the aborted trial of Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
The second Operation Luna report focuses on the awarding of a $5 million contract to a consultancy company owned by ”complexity and systems thinker” Patrick Hollingworth, the sixth and final one CIT entered into for its organisational change project.
That company, Red Rouge Nominees trading as Think Garden, successfully sued CIT for breach of the contract, which CIT had paused indefinitely in 2022 when the contracts controversy broke in the media.
The company had already been paid $1.6m as per the contentious payment schedule and Red Rouge sought the remaining $3.4 million but ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop awarded $2.4m plus costs.
The second phase of the commission’s investigation looked at whether corrupt conduct occurred during the contract negotiations, including for the payment schedule, which provided for substantial amounts to be paid in advance of the services to be provided.
The CIT contracts scandal has already claimed former CEO Leanne Cover, who resigned in June last year, just before the commission’s first Special Report found she was “guilty of serious corrupt conduct”.
There were no grounds for criminal charges but the investigation remained ongoing.
Now the second report has been completed but those named in it have been given six weeks to look at the report and provide comments to Commissioner Michael Adams before publication of the final Special Report.
The other investigation, Operation Juno, looked at Mr Sofronoff’s conduct in 2023 when he provided confidential material to journalists and released his report on the Lehrmann trial to journalists before it was released by Chief Minister Andrew Barr, which cost ACT prosecutor Shane Drumgold his job.
In a bid to clear his name, Mr Drumgold launched legal action in the ACT Supreme Court, successfully claiming Mr Sofronoff’s private communications with The Australian journalist Janet Albrechtsen gave rise to apprehended bias.
Albrechtsen was a constant critic of Mr Drumgold’s actions during the Lehrmann trial.
Like the Operation Luna report, those given this report will have six weeks to comment as part of procedural fairness, although there is scope for more time to be granted if needed.
Mr Adams will consider those comments before preparing the final Investigation Report.
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