New details about alleged conflicts of interest and “corrupt conduct” are contained in a trove of internal documents that Sydney Metro and umbrella agency Transport for NSW have fought to keep secret.
Sydney Metro is overseeing the construction of nearly $60 billion worth of train lines across the city.Janie Barrett
The agencies will be compelled to release internal investigation details,contracts between Sydney Metro and two professional services contractors as well as other documents after objections to the secrecy were raised by Greens MP Cate Faehrmann.
Independent legal arbiter Keith Mason,KC,found that boxes of internal documents relating to what Faehrmann alleged were unnamed senior executives “creating a role for $459,056 with no competitive tender”,as well as a preliminary report into alleged conflicts of interest and alleged corrupt conduct,should not be suppressed after he examined them.
Sydney Metro said in a statement that it took the allegations regarding senior executives “very seriously”,and the matters were investigated by Transport for NSW’s workplace conduct investigations unit and appropriate actions were taken arising from the findings.
“These findings were shared with the Independent Commission Against Corruption. It is not appropriate to comment on the details of a confidential investigation,” it said.
The transport agencies had claimed many of the more than 10,000 documents compiled to answer a NSW parliamentary request should remain privileged because they contain personal and sensitive information about complainants,respondents and witnesses involved in two investigations.
However,Mason said the documents “all lie at the heart of the matters of concern” to parliament and nothing he saw suggested there were whistleblowers or people at risk of reprisal wanting to suppress the information as contended by the agencies.
“The internal investigations have been completed and there is nothing to indicate a basis for restricting the processes of parliamentary oversight and accountability,” he said in a report.
TheHerald revealed last year that hundreds of consultants were being on the city’s mega rail projects as following allegations of bullying,conflicts of interest,corruption and fraud.
The agency spent more than $50,000 for two private investigators on “fact-finding” missions into “some very senior people”.
Mason’s finding that the internal documents should be released needs to be considered by parliament’s privileges committee on Wednesday before they can be publicly released.
Faehrmann said the release of the documents would allow further scrutiny of the decisions taken by Sydney Metro’s senior executives when it came to the spending of large sums of public money.
“We’re increasingly seeing government agencies returning huge swaths of documents under upper house orders,and slapping a claim of privilege over most of them,” she said.
An investigation code-named Elara began early last year after an internal Sydney Metro evaluation of “corruption,fraud,conduct,performance,grievance (including discrimination and harassment)” allegations.
Heavily redacted documents have revealed that investigators substantiated some of the allegations in the Elara probe. An index of the privileged documents tabled to parliament included a redacted entry titled “confirmation of submission:Sydney Metro to ICAC-Elara”.
The agency also ran a separate investigation code-named Cyllene that examined contractors working in senior positions at Sydney Metro who also ran their own companies that won tenders from the agency worth millions of dollars.
Sydney Metro chief executive Peter Regan told a hearing last November that there was “no evidence that we have seen” substantiating allegations of professional services contractors awarding contracts to their own companies.
The agency said on Tuesday that it had “robust procedures” in place to allow confidential reporting of wrongdoing but also had an obligation to protect the privacy of people who make a confidential report and those who provide evidence to any workplace investigation.
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