Australia: Howard Govt's Hypocrisy on Pact for Anti-Corruption in Asia-Pacific

Read here article by Hamish McDonald and Craig Skehan "Big stink in little China" in Sydney Morning Herald

May 18, 2004

Excerpts from Hamish McDonald and Craig Skehan's article

On November 30 2003, Australian Federal Justice Minister, Chris Ellison,joined Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in announcing Australia's endorsement of the Anti-Corruption Action Plan for Asia and the Pacific, proposed by the Asian Development Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

When Hong Kong wanted Canberra to return two Australian businessmen to stand trial, it refused, despite the Australian courts having approved the extradition of the two Australian businessmen.

In Hongkong, two Australian building executives were alleged to have provided bribes to Macau site inspectors to falsify records.

But Australian Federal Justice Minister, Chris Ellison, blocked the extradition of the two Australian executives wanted in Hong Kong to stand trial over alleged irregularities at the Tung Chung development.

As a result, Australia's standing in the key Asia financial centre has been damaged.

Given the potential for misuse of Hong Kong's open financial system and free trading port by money launderers and triads, this would be a major gap in Australia's legal armour. Hong Kong is seeking the return of four others from Australia, while Australia wants to extradite three people from Hong Kong, one of whom is allegedly involved in a serious fraud case.

Hong Kong law officials suspect Ellison's unexplained decision signals a wider interruption to a previously trouble-free extradition arrangement, and some have angrily suggested Hong Kong should go slow on Australian requests. "The initial reaction was if Australia can't be reasonable, why should we be reasonable?" one senior Hong Kong official said.

Some Hong Kong officials are suggesting Ellison did not want to send white Australians back to face justice in an Asian court. Hong Kong's Secretary for Education, Li Kwok-cheung, said in Australia last week,

"It has given Hong Kong people a very unfavourable impression of what Australian justice is about."

The Extradition Case

The row revolves around the request for Carl Voigt, 46, of Brisbane, and David Roger Hendy, 42, of Perth, to stand trial in Hong Kong.

The men are former executive engineers of a piling company in Hong Kong, I-P Foundations. Their company is said to have installed 72 out of 76 bored piles that were shorter than the prescribed length at the site of a high-rise housing estate near a new subway station.

The commission said the substandard work created a "frightening" hazard of a major building collapse putting hundreds of lives at risk.

A resident engineer and two others have been sentenced to jail terms of two to five years.

Voigt and Hendy, who left Hong Kong before the investigation, were arrested by Federal Police in October 2002 at the commission's request.

Their extradition was approved by Australia courts, but proceedings were dropped against Voigt last October on Ellison's decision, and those against Hendy in December.

Hong Kong ministers and officials are increasingly riled that diplomatic protests, conveyed through the Australian Consulate-General, are NOT being acknowledged as such by either Ellison or the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer.

Questioned in Parliament, Ellison has refused to reveal the reasons behind the decision.

I-P Foundations has since been merged with Intrafor, another foundation group owned by the same French parent, the construction group Bouygues.

In January, the Hong Kong corruption commission announced arrests in a separate alleged defective foundation case involving the successor company Intrafor.

Three former justices of the Australian High Court - Anthony Mason, Gerard Brennan, and Daryl Dawson - sit on Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal.

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