DJ & JE DIPROSE
XXXXXX
TAROONA TAS 7053
31/12/2009
Scott Caulfield AFP Agent
XXXXXX
HOBART
Dear Scott,
In reference to your email of 9th inst; regretfully, my medical advice is that I am not able to participate in an interview. I believe that I referred to this possibility previously.
I was able to quickly locate the below documents which you might find relevant to the issues raised by Mr (John) White (pictured, left).
The TCC undertaking to Minister Cox was a maximum payment of $20,000 per annum to each director as Due diligence which was a condition of the Authority given as the Cox Authority on 23 August 2003.
The Tasmanian Compliance Corporation (TCC) balance sheet (p14) at 23/6/04 showing $70,000.00 paid to Mr White’s superannuation fund.
The TCC balance sheet 23/6/05 showing $95,000.00 paid into Mr White’s superannuation fund and no similar amount to shareholders or directors.
A statement from the TCC showing that those payments were made not withstanding a balance owing to me at 30 June 04 of over $250,000.00. I also refer you to the unconscionable non-payment of monies owed to Andrea Pentacost.
Page 6 of the proceedings before Chief Justice Underwood on 5/12/07 where the Director of Public Prosecutions Mr Ellis set out the Clause 9 submitted on behalf of Mr White that provided for a payment to the TCC of twice the audited amount of Accreditation fees for the most recently completed year.
The audited details of costs of Accreditation fees for that most recent year.
Page 10 of Mr Ellis’s submissions where he took what I understand to be an almost unprecedented step of accepting that it would be appropriate for no conviction to be recorded against a person who had been indicted in the Supreme Court.
As my affidavit said I don’t know whether any deal was done between the Crown and Mr White’s legal representative.
As to Mr White’s behaviour generally I refer you to these incidents;
A frightening confrontation with Andrea Pentacost at XXXXX Battery Point 7004 during 2005/6 which was reported to the Tasmanian Police which I believe they then investigated.
The lifelong friend dying of cancer that I referred to was Mrs Julie Duncan (nee Badcock). Your enquiries will show that she was an original shareholder (of the Tasmanian Builders Compliance Corporation (this became the TCC) and that she was replaced by Mr Glen Milliner, an action arranged by Mr White.
She didn’t receive a payout for her interest in the Corporation and nor did her surviving daughter who was then 15 years old. I believe you can obtain further details from the girl’s father, Mr Peter Duncan, the former Attorney General of South Australia and former Federal Labor Minister. Mrs Duncan was entitled to ¼ of the earnings for that year.
Of course I am, sad to say, amongst the ranks of people who formerly considered Mr John White a close friend and have suffered considerably.
In addition to finding him to be XXXXX, I’ve found him to be widely held in considerable disregard.
Yours sincerely,
David Diprose BA MAICD
*The Sunday Tasmanian has an article on this issue today; it has not been placed online
‘Tis now:
PHILIPPA DUNCAN
January 10, 2010 08:08am
SERIOUSLY ill former Tasmanian Compliance Corporation director David Diprose is being investigated by federal police.
The investigation follows startling new claims by his former friend John White.
Mr White, his former business partner, has alleged Mr Diprose made false statements in sworn evidence in a 2008 court case stemming from the TCC scandal, which ended Bryan Green’s term as deputy premier.
A defiant Mr Diprose, who has cancer which has spread through his body, has dismissed the allegation as “a joke”.
“Yes I have a serious illness, but it will not prevent me vigorously and actively protesting against this ludicrous action,” he said.
“Dragging the TCC scandal back on the front pages of the newspaper two months before the election is petty revenge for people in the Labor Party, who John feels have let him down.
“One of the things that is embarrassing for the Government is to re-raise the Bryan Green matter.”
Asked whether his complaint was motivated by malice, Mr White said: “This matter is now the subject of an Australian Federal Police inquiry. It is inappropriate for me to comment.”
The federal agent who alerted Mr Diprose to the investigation has not returned the Sunday Tasmanian’s calls.
But in an email, the agent asks Mr Diprose for evidence to support the allegations he made against Mr White in a Federal Court case to decide whether the TCC should pay Mr White’s $60,000 legal fees.
In an affidavit, Mr Diprose alleged, among other things, Mr White had: * “Looted builders’ funds from the TCC”. * “Done a deal for $1 million for his private retirement fund”.
Mr Diprose admits the allegation is serious.
“I’m staring down the barrel of three years’ jail,” he said. “[But] I made a statement under oath and I stand by what I swore.”
He said he and Mr White had been friends for 42 years before the TCC scandal, but did not speak to each other now.
“None of this has done us well. He’s reported to have had cancer, too,” Mr Diprose said.
Mr White, a lawyer and former Labor minister, pleaded guilty in 2007 to interfering with an executive officer over the secret signing of a three-year monopoly deal for the TCC with Mr Green. He was not convicted and put on a good behaviour bond until last December.
A case against Mr Green was abandoned after two Supreme Court trials could not decide on his guilt or innocence.
