The Rhodium Scandal

And the original clerks who have been there forever and know how everything works are out on their ear at 45/50 trying to find new jobs.
Outsourcing is a cruel joke.

Outsourcing is an expensive joke. What a few clerks used to do, now requires a whole company…oh no it bloody well doesn’t! Our rates and taxes go up and up, user-pays reigns, but services become less.

The Auditor-General (Tu Pham) had a go at the two shareholders (Stanhope and Gallagher) about this Rhodium matter. The Chief Minister was in high dudgeon this week, describing Tu Pham’s comments as “gratuitious”. His incredible arrogance will cost the ALP dearly at the next election.

Their pay used to be 80 grand. Up to 100 ish now i think, with a bit more for chief minister and deputy katy. you get a car though and a phone.
but you also can’t go out to dinner without people coming up to tell you what they think.

I wish you would stand for election. I hope the next election is a bit interesting. Labor is on the nose, libs are deadly dull. maybe we’ll get another mixed bag like the first assemblies.

She looks like a local person from a local town, and there’s nothing for you here. (Queanbeyan for the rest).

After watching Barr on motorsports Stateline tonight I’m seriously considering joining politics. If somebody as dumb as S7S or Barr can get gainful employment for several hundred G’s a year, I’m obviously doing something wrong.

Vote for me.

Barking Toad, Mulcahy as an alternative? Now that IS scary! Heavs and Vic Bitterman are right, the staff at Rhodium provide great service IN SPITE OF the goings on of the upper management. And the board – sure they didn’t know anything either. What were they being paid for?? A cushy part time job reeking in the $s? Some of you need to learn how to carry on a discussion without turning it into a personal attack on someone’s looks or marriages. These things do not go hand in hand with their ethics or ability to run a company!

I read somewhere that she won the Telstra “Businesswoman of the year” award…

…on the downside there’s probably a bunch of people in the motor and finance industries that will have to buy their own Brumbies tickets this year.

She must ‘present’ really well in person, to get these top jobs, and to get 3 husbands. She must then deteriorate in the long term, to then bring out the whistle blowers and the divorces.

Thumper, what’s wrong with you man: she’s a hottie!

I can’t believe how many of these women in power end up looking like men.

It is amazing that this went on for so long. If she had been a bit less over the top noone would have ever noticed(ie, no lexus and 10 grand holiday loans from the work coffers).
thank goodness for the whistleblower.

See, it’s true that you can’t trust someone who’s Tasmanian and who’s been married more than twice!

It’s an opportunity for the likes of Mulcahy to demonstrate if they have anything to offer as an alternative to the current incompetent incumbents.

And the board of this government company was paid? For what?

No doubt our brave mayor will point the finger of blame eveywhere but in his own direction but it’s just another example of how his leadership has got this town financially fucked.

Yeah, can’t sack a minister – they’re protected under the Bill of Rights!

A ministers head roll, mate this is the ACT….

I’ve just noticed she has a lovely little crucifix around her neck, just below her pearls; what a lovely touch.

Obviously she was on a mission from God!

I’ve also had nothing but excellent service when dealing with the staff of Rhodium. I manage a not insubstantial fleet where I work. Like Dean Bitterman though, I’ve only had to deal with worker drone level.

It just annoys me that other areas of government are getting so smashed by the budget and these clowns are running around doing this. It’s like the jokers in Treasury sitting up there with their 90inch plasma screens while the rest of us are using second hand commodore 64’s on black and white TV’s to save a few bucks. Cunts.

Where this this bitch live? I would like to send her some flowers for a job well done.

BTW, she came from totalcare I hear, who used to run the fleet.

Hmmmmmmm

I’m a Rhodium customer, I lease (salary package) a car via them.

They are a great company to deal with, never had an issue.

But I’ve never had to deal with anyone higher than whoever can authorise a signature for the lease, or to field a phone call or two in regards to the package.

Based on the article this women is scum. She should go to jail for stealing and mis appropirating funds. Good on the whistle blower.

I’m fascinated to know what the government’s rationale was for owning a leasing company. Its not like there’s a gap in the market that the private sector fails to fill. There are dozens, probably hundreds of leasing companies around. Hardly core government business!

The other thing I’d like to know is where the CEO was recruited from and what her prior track record was, also who did the recruiting.

I just hope her house was burnt down in the 2003 fires and the school her kids go to is being closed.

Somehow I don’t think we’d be that lucky :-/

Although now that I look at her photo, she does seem to think she has Jesus on her side. Bloody Hypocrite.

I find this absolutely disgusting. Other services within the ACT government are basically subsisting on the budgets allowed and these people think that it’s a free for all. have they no morals?

Advance payments and nearly a quarter of a mil entertainment budget?
Never mind the milk of human kindness, gimme a go at the public tit.
Are they hiring? Where do I send my CV?

Well I’m fucked, my car is with Rhodium.

If he coulda got selected that is

I remember starting work with the local council and being told that the (Carnell) govt had sold off thier vehicle fleet, then leased the same vehicles back, at several times the market rate, and that the exec who had signed it off had already moved to a cushy position with the new fleet owner, Maquarie bank. dodgy government dealings indeed. Perhaps it was to pay for the extra seats that went in at Bruce stadium shortly after

No, seepi. I just suspect that in this case a dud was selected and the process may have been compromised because they wanted a sheila.

And yes, areaman, a bloke could have done the same if he was a dud.

Surely those charged with the responsibility of selection couldn’t have got it that wrong if they weren’t blinkered by a gender bias?

Because men have never, ever been involved with corporate scandals. That really has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read on the RA.

toad are you really trying to say that any woman in this job would have employed all their rellies, splashed out on a convertible and spent 10,000 while overseas on holidays?

I’m guessing those responsible for selection would be the Treasurer and Chief Minster, or their representatives.

If you really think that the only way they could do something incompetently was due to gender bias, then you really haven’t been following the news very well.

Given the incompetence displayed by Clark I suspect the selection WAS made on gender.

Surely those charged with the responsibility of selection couldn’t have got it that wrong if they weren’t blinkered by a gender bias?

I doubt that Clark was appointed just because she’s a woman – incompetent/shonky men are never appointed just because they’re blokes, so why shoud she?

Which is not to suggest that people responsible for appointing her should be cleared from blame – just that I wouldn’t blame equity for this one.

The dunderheads responsible for her appointment should also be held to account.

A case of selection based on gender in line with the bleeding heart leftie policy of the labor party?

Shareholders indeed collect the profits, but in a poorly run (and come on guys, this is a pseudo govt outfit we are talking about) company, most or all profit gets spilled along the way.

Given that the only “shareholders” of Rhodium are the Treasurer and Chief Minister one wonders where the buck ultimately stops?

Does anyone see rates and other charges going up again?

Didn’t the Federales tie some State/Territory funding to “competitive tendering” of certain Govt functions, perhaps Sonic can say its all the Lying Rodent’s fault.

Small companies exist to get rich, especially off government

But when it’s a Territory Owned Corporation we the people are entitled to ask for whom does the benefit lie in this money pump?

Sounds like the CEO simply did exactly what he should have done.

Small companies exist to get rich, especially off government.

10 points I say!

I think the CT today mentions the CEO by name.

This is fairly typical of what happens when govt tries to play business. The benefits of outsourcing are to do with resourcing and economies of scale, but the reality is that it rarely saves $$. On a small scale it’s pure stupidity.

They’d be better off managing it in-house, with the help of a contracted body or two who had done it all before and came with good references. That comment goes for most areas of admin, and some operations.