AGY-6234 | Tender Committee for the Sale of State Industrial Undertakings

Full description

The Tender Committe for the Sale of State Industrial Undertakings was established when the Cabinet met on 21 November 1933 and approved the sale of State industrial undertakings. The Chairman of the Tender Committee was Mr E A Barton 'a well-known accountant who [had] conducted various investigations for the different Governments'. The other two members were Mr Gibson, 'a consulting engineer of wide experience', and Mr E H Swift, the Under-Secretary of the Department of Public Works. (1)

Three different departments - the Department of Public Works, the Premier's Department and the Department of the Assistant Treasurer - as well as the Tender Committee, were concerned in various transactions connected with the sale. Thus records of the sale were to be found across those departments as well as in the records of the Tender Committee kept by Mr Barton. (2)

The State Brickworks were opened up on Crown Land and commenced operations in November 1911. The Undertaking was sold to Brickworks Ltd., in accordance with the provisions of Executive Council minute No.36 of 4 September 1935, and ceased to be a State Undertaking as from midnight on Sunday 23 February 1936. (3)

The State Monier Pipe and Reinforce Concrete Works was sold by public tender and transferred to Monier Industries Limited, from 8 March 1936 when its manufacturing activities ceased. (4) Tenders had been called for the purchase in two lots of the whole of the assets (excluding book debts) of the State Monier Pipe and Reinforced Concrete Works. The two lots comprised the Pipe Manufacturing Factory at Erskineville and certain subsidiary factories established in the country and he General Contracting Plant. (5)

The State Metal Quarries which commenced operations in September 1911 were sold to Quarries Limited in accordance with the provisions of Executive Council minute No. 5 of 12 February 1936. (6) The sale was completed on 22 March 1936. (7)

A condition of each sale was that employees of the Industrial Undertakings, if they so desired, should be taken into the service of the purchasers. They were paid the value of accrued leave and compensation according to their years of service. (8)

The Tender Committee was abolished by the end of June 1936. (9)

Endnotes
(1) Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Charges of Fraud and Corruption in connection with the Sale of State Industrial Undertakings, 1 March 1938, p.7 in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1938-39-40 Vol. 6, p.755; NRS 12828, Papers of the Committee, 1933-36 [4/7410.2].
(2) Ibid. pp.17-18 in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1938-39-40 Vol. 6, pp.765-766.
(3) Report of the Auditor-General for the financial year ended 30th June, 1936. Part II Accounts of the Business and Industrial Undertakings, Administrative and Miscellaneous Accounts; Audited under the Audit Act, 1902, Trustees Act, 1912, and other statutory authorities, pp.1, 97 in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1936-37 Vol. 2, pp.939, 1039.
(4) Loc. cit. note 3, p.99; ibid., p.1041.
(5) Report of the Department of Works and Local Government for the year ended 30th June, 1936, p.72 in NSW Parliamentary Papers 1937-38 Vol. 3, p.1216.
(6) Loc. cit note 4.
(7) Loc. cit. note 5.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Loc. cit. note 5.