City North Infrastructure, known as CNI, is where the real action and fault line lays. In the KWRA's opinion CNI should simply not exist - or if they have to, they should be fully transparent and accountable to their owner - the State Government and us, the voters and people whose taxes pay their way.
CNI are what is referred to as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). They are incorporated under Commonwealth Law. They are a not a Government Owned Coorporation (GOC) under the GOC Act 1993 and are also not listed in the GOC regulations. They consider themselves a fully private entity and yet CNI's entire shareholding is Queensland State Government Departments (or their representatives) and CNI's Directors are all Queensland State Government Department individuals. CNI also categorise themselves as not subject to the Right To Information Act 2009.
Interestingly Colin Jensen, the Coordinator General who is responsible for the ruling on the Proposed Wooloowin Worksite and for any other Airport Link changes, has a 1/3 shareholding in City North Infrastructure.
City North Infrastructure's shareholders as at 25 August 2009 are:
# of shares Name Roles 2 JENSEN, COLIN Coordinator General AND Director General, Department of Infrastructure and Planning 1 STEWART, DAVID Director General, Department of Transport and Main Roads 1 TESCH, ALAN Associate Director General, Department of Transport and Main Roads 2 QUEENSLAND TREASURY HOLDINGS PTY LTD A Queensland Treasury Company
In the words of one of our residents:
"To the person on the street City North Infrastructure look and smell like a State Government entity. CNI are directed by the State. CNI shareholders are the State. They were created from a State and Local Government operation in December 2006. Why then are they exempt from Right To Information? We have seen CNI deliberately stonewall and actively deceive our community with regard to information directly related the proposed Wooloowin Worksite. This is unacceptable from where I stand and clearly CNI have something to hide. As a publicly funded and controlled entity, with no clear checks in place, this is simply untenable."
More information on Special Purpose Vehicles (Entities):
BrisConnections and TJH JV are big, private business. Big business is about profit and accountability to shareholders. BrisConnections and TJH JV should be doing whatever they can in this space, and probably are. So who holds them accountable, keeps them honest and enforces compliance within the AirportLink project? We expect this to be CNI. Instead CNI appear to be acting on behalf of BrisConnections and TJH JV. This is clearly not acting on behalf of the State and communities of Queensland, as CNI claim at the top of their website.Special purpose entities were one of the main tools used by executives at Enron, in order to hide losses and fabricate earnings, resulting in the Enron scandal of 2001. They were also used to hide losses and overstate earnings by executives at Tower Financial, which declared bankruptcy in 1994. Several executives of the company were found guilty of securities fraud, served prison sentences, and paid fines.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_purpose_entity
David Lynch is the CEO of City North Infrastructure.
David Lynch has indicated CNI do not have the Borehole Log known as "APL06" in response to a Right To Information request from one of our KWRA members. But we know he does ... Charles MacDonald, General Manager of Construction BrisConnections has told us CNI do have the Borehole log known as "APL06".
David Lynch refuses to come clear on the issue of the Borehole Log known as "APL06". He claims he thought we were after the actual soil samples. This from the man who is meant to be heading up the Special Purpose Vehicle in charge of a $4.7 Billion State Project - STAGGERING!
ASIC information on CNI, as at 25 August 2009, can be found here.