The Opposition has demanded the Premier and Minister for Mines and Petroleum take responsibility for their oversight failures at Gold Corporation, putting West Australians at financial risk.
In Parliament today, Shadow Mines and Petroleum Minister Shane Love said any mismanagement of the taxpayer-funded organisation would risk WA’s global reputation.
Mr Love outlined a long list of concerns about Gold Corporation potentially exposing WA taxpayers to higher levels of risk related to money laundering, with insufficient protections in place.
“The series of governance failures span numerous years, including a four-year period when the Premier was responsible for the State-owned organisation,” Mr Love said.
“Gold Corporation has been a high turnover business which had a change of business approach, eventually moving to a higher risk, more volatile business setting.
“Through this period of expansion, red flags were raised internally about a lack of mandatory reporting but instead of acting on the red flags, the Premier and his Government ignored them.
“The result of this has led to the WA state-owned entity being investigated by AUSTRAC.” Mr Love said the ramifications of falling foul of the Anti-Money Laundering Counter Terrorism Financing Legislation can be criminal.
“For the Premier to claim problems with Gold Corporation are nothing more than an administrative error, shows how inept his understanding of the seriousness of the situation is,” Mr Love said.
“With West Australians potentially on the hook for a huge fine, I called for the Premier and his embattled Minister in Bill Johnston to take responsibility.
“The Premier refused to front up and the Minister responded in an abysmal fashion, failing to take ownership over the failures in Gold Corporation which occurred under his watch.”
Mr Love vowed to keep the pressure on the McGowan Labor Government to give West Australian taxpayers the answers they want and deserve.
