Treasurer Dominic Perrottet\u2019s scandal-ridden agency iCare broke its own procurement rules to award at least $6 million of contracts to Korn Ferry, a recruitment firm closely linked to former NSW Liberal Party Minister and Party Treasurer Robert Webster.
\nRobert Webster was a senior Minister in the Greiner Government. He also served as the NSW Liberal Party’s Finance Director in 2005. Until earlier this year, Korn Ferry listed Mr Webster as its Senior Client Partner & Head of Asia Pacific Board Services. \u00a0Public records show that since 2015 Mr Webster has donated $61,345 to the Federal Liberal Party.
\nMr Webster was responsible for recruiting the iCare Board Director that replaced NSW Treasury Secretary Michael Pratt\u2019s after his resignation in 2017.
\nKorn Ferry is currently searching for three new directors to be appointed next year.
\nNSW Labor’s Shadow Minister for Finance and Small Business, Daniel Mookhey said iCare\u2019s latest scandal was \u2019shocking:\u2019
\n\u201cIt\u2019s incredible that iCare would break their own rules to put the former Treasurer of the NSW Liberal Party in-charge of board recruitment,\u201d Mr Mookhey said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe Korn Ferry would have won this tender without their close connection to the Liberal Party.
\n\u201cWorse – The Treasurer is letting a Liberal-aligned company pick iCare\u2019s new directors despite the cloud of suspicion hanging over their own appointment.”
\nLast month, NSW Labor exposed iCare for handing $18 million without tender to the IVE Group, another major party donor led by a former NSW Liberal Party President.
\nPublic disclosures show that since 2014 the IVE Group has donated $151,004 to the Liberal Party. Mr Mookhey said:
\n\u201ciCare has been secretly handing contracts to Liberal-aligned businesses like confetti. It stinks.
\n\u201cNo one can have confidence in iCare\u2019s independence when it so entwined with senior Liberal Party figures and donors.\u201d
\niCare provides workers compensation insurance to more than 326,000 businesses. It insures 3.6 million employees. The agency\u2019s investment portfolio is worth $38 billion. The Treasurer created iCare in 2015. It has only ever answered to him.
\nUnder Dominic Perrottet’s stewardship:<\/p>\n
Despite this record Mr Perrotett told Parliament that iCare did a ‘superb’ job.
\nMr Mookhey said:
\n“The Treasurer has his head-in-the-sand about the going-ons of his $38 billion agency.
\n\u201cSick and injured workers and employers have lost confidence in iCare. The Treasurer needs to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Treasurer Dominic Perrottet\u2019s scandal-ridden agency iCare broke its own procurement rules to award at least $6 million of contracts to Korn Ferry, a recruitment firm closely linked to former NSW Liberal Party Minister and Party Treasurer Robert Webster. Robert Webster was a senior Minister in the Greiner Government. He also served as the NSW Liberal … Continue reading “iCare secretly hands millions recruitment firm linked to the Liberal Party”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}