Thursday, 16 November 2023

Melbourne Water

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:07): (605) My matter is for the Minister for Water tonight, and it concerns the Melbourne Water authority and specifically Melbourne Water’s general manager, major capital delivery, for eight years, Niru Gosavi. I understand that he quit about two weeks ago under a serious cloud. It is clear that he did not declare a conflict of interest and that his wife Avanti Gosavi worked for several years for Aqua Metro. Aqua Metro’s projects page makes it clear that they are doing millions of dollars worth of work for Melbourne Water. Avanti Gosavi now consults at Aqua Metro via her firm SRA Civil Services. The question is: what has happened in terms of the conflicts of interest? I am reliably informed that the conflict-of-interest register was not properly filled in and that Mr Gosavi is out, left under a serious cloud. This is potentially significant corruption here at Melbourne Water. I also understand that a probe has been organised. The minister may wish to advise whether she is aware of this scandal and is aware of these internal probes that are occurring at Melbourne Water. I understand internal probes are what is occurring. The action I am requesting of you, Minister, is that you, number one –

Harriet Shing: You get one action.

David DAVIS: Well, this is two parts, actually, to the one action: that you shine a transparent light on this by doing two steps. The first is that there is a conflict-of-interest register at Melbourne Water and you insist that the details of that be released in full, and that you refer the matter to the police. This is a serious matter – a matter of corruption, it does appear. At an absolute minimum there is a clear conflict of interest here where the serious position of a major bureaucrat, a significant bureaucrat, a general manager, has oversighted and dealt with contracts that involve a firm with which his wife is closely involved. If he has not made that declaration, that is very serious, but in any event this is a very close matter and it needs to be dealt with appropriately. My information is that it has not been dealt with appropriately, so I ask you to release the conflict-of-interest register and refer the matter to the police.