Is there a NSW Health Quarantine Fee Entity to rival Perrotet's Transport Asset Holding Entity - Did Treasurer (now Premier) Perrotet create another shell company to house NSW Quarantine costs?

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

 

                                   Premier Dominic Perrotet, the former Treasurer

The SMH revealed in June 2021: 

The NSW government has attempted to cover up how it artificially inflated the state’s budgets by tens of billions of dollars after it shifted the rail network’s costs onto a corporation that still hasn’t been able to properly operate six years after it was launched

The corporation, known as the Transport Asset Holding Entity (TAHE), was part of a plan hatched in 2014 to set up a shell corporation to shift billions of dollars of expenses off the state budget and into a new rail body.

NSW Treasury was able to use the corporation, with the approval of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, to inflate the budget to help mask the government slipping into deficit in 2018.

Premier Dominic Perrotet  was Treasurer from 2017 to 2021; he succeeded Gladys Berejiklian, who was Transport Minister from 2011 to 2015, and then Treasurer, before she became Premier, until two weeks ago when she was succeeded by Perrotet.

The accounting of NSW Quarantine Fees seems so murky that the question has to be asked: Is there a NSW Health Quarantine Fee Entity to rival  Perrotet's  Transport Asset Holding Entity and did Treasurer (now Premier) Perrotet create another shell company  to house NSW Quarantine costs?

TO  BE READ WITH 

Without enabling legislation, NSW Health & Sydney Local Health District cannot record as revenue anything received from quarantined travellers- With legislation, NSW Health & SLHD cannot record as revenue a fine or penalty collected and enforced by Victor Dominello's Revenue NSW

October 12, 2021

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

                            SLHD CEO Teresa Anderson AM  has ultimate responsibility for signing 

                             off SLHD's financial statements 

The refusal by  Ministers Victor Dominello and Brad Hazzard to provide any clarification of the legislation that they are relying on to collect quarantine fees means that NSW Health & Sydney Local Health District cannot record as revenue anything received from quarantined travellers. The absence of enabling legislation adds to the accounting nightmare SLHD Chief Executive Teresa Andersen must confront, given her responsibility for the preparation of the SLHD's accounts, which must then be tabled in the NSW Parliament. 

Even if there is enabling legislation (and there is so far no evidence that there is) the treatment of that cash inflow is problematic given Dominello's treatment of that cash flow as a penalty or fine over which his Revenue NSW has control. 

An invoice for a fee that is a penalty: Dominello's Revenue NSW will issue a statement of claim against anyone who seeks to challenge Hazzard's Quarantine Fee invoice

 

by Ganesh Sahathevan 

This writer has been informed in writing by  Minister for Digital Victor Dominello's Revenue NSW officers that anyone wishing to challenge Health Minister Brad Hazzard's  Quarantine Fee Invoice will be issued a statement of claim by Revenue NSW.

That turns what has been described as a fee for services provided anyone who is required to be quarantined into a penalty. The invoice issued by Ministers Hazzard and Dominello for quarantine fees has therefore become much like a penalty or fine for speeding or some other traffic infringement.

How NSW Health accounts for the above in its own books remains a mystery. 

TO BE READ WITH 

Hazzard & Dominello's Quarantine Fee caper may have created an accounting & cashflow nightmare for NSW Health, Sydney Local Health District

October 01, 2021

 by   Ganesh Sahathevan 

                                                 

                                                        Brad Hazzard

                                           

                     Victor Dominello 

NSW Health is in charge of administering  NSW's COVID hotel quarantine system for arrivals by air. Those who have been quarantined for the mandatory 14 days are invoiced for their hotel stay by Sydney Local Health District (SLHD), which is part of NSW Health. The minister ultimately responsible is the NSW Minister For Health Brad HAzzard.

 

The invoice however is issued, and enforced, by Revenue NSW, and the minister ultimately responsible for that is Victor Dominello, who likes to be known as the Minister For Digital. 

Additionally, any queries about the invoice sent SLHD are directed to Revenue NSW.In fact, SLHD has informed this writer that it has been directed by NSW Health to do so, and cannot answer any queries about the particulars of its own invoice.In other words, the parties to the invoice cannot speak to each other; the person to whom the invoice is issued can only speak with Revenue NSW NSW with regards any concerns about the invoice. 

If the invoice is not paid when it falls due, Revenue NSW will pursue the matter with the help of debt collectors. Again, NSW Health and SLHD does not get involved.

All of the above raises accounting issues for SLHD Chief Executive, Teresa Anderson, who has ultimate responsible for SLHD's financial statements, which must be prepared, signed off by her, and then consolidated into NSW Health's financial statements. The individual and consolidated statements must then be tabled in Parliament by the Brad Hazzard.

However, without actual control of the revenue, it is hard to see what Ms Andersen might be accounting for. And that is not all; SLHD incurs costs in administering the hotel quarantine system, even if it has not control of the revenue. It is in a position where the cash is going out, but there may not be anything coming in. 

Questions about the above were put to Ms Andersen, but she has refused to provide answers. Meanwhile a large cash income , if not, cash deficit might be developing at SLHD, impairing its ability to provide health services to the people of Sydney. 

END