RSS Feed
February 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Updated
A State Parliamentary inquiry is to investigate allegations the state-owned betting agency TOTE Tasmania gave all of its profits away to big punters through rebates.
The agency’s outgoing chief, Craig Coleman, has rejected allegations made by the Tatts Group, which is buying the TOTE for $103 million.
But the committee’s chairman, the Greens MP, Kim Booth, says he is recalling Mr Coleman and Treasury officials.
“To have a look at the issues as to why TOTE only delivered a $1.3 million profit with nearly $1 Billion in turnover in 2011.
“If there’ve been issues there where the TOTE mismanagement has driven a collapse in its value, these are serious matters that need to be explored and we intend to do that,” he said.
Mr Booth is also calling the chief executive of the TOTE’s new owner, the Tatts Group, which claims the “massive” rebates to high-end punters savaged the agency’s profits.
Mr Coleman has confirmed it does pay incentives.
“Any suggestion that our profit result in 2010-11 was a result of rebates and commissions paid to large customers is simply incorrect,” he said.
The ABC understands Mr Coleman spent Wednesday consoling many of the 80 staff who will lose their jobs when the agency changes hands at the end of next month.
The Community and Public Sector Union fears there are no guarantees for the remaining 160 employees.
The Economic Development Minister David O’Byrne says the job cuts are unfortunate.
“Within those negotiations, as with all commercial negotiations over a transfer of ownership, you try to do your best to ensure that the people within those businesses are well looked after.
“And my understanding is that those people that have been identified as being, sort of, not needed for the business, they will be given redundancies and all of their entitlements,” the Minister said.
The Union’s Tom Lynch blames the Premier, Lara Giddings, for the extent of the job cuts, about one third of the workforce.
He says the workers are highly-paid, skilled workers who will now be joining the unemployment queues.
Mr Lynch says the issue of the incentive payments has caught his attention since the TOTE sale was announced last year.
“They are of concern to us, the investment in the Sportbet business that clearly went belly up.
“We’re very concerned that those management decisions resulted in workers that were just doing their jobs losing their jobs,” Mr Lynch said.
The inquiry examining the TOTE is expected to sit again on Friday.
Topics:
horse-racing,
business-economics-and-finance,
states-and-territories,
hobart-7000,
launceston-7250,
burnie-7320
First posted
Posted in 
Tags: 
