Fred Hansen given $10,000 to move home despite being sacked, censured by ICAC and receiving $385,000 payout

A FORMER State Government department head given a huge payout when sacked last year, and later found guilty of maladministration over the Gillman land deal, also received a $10,000 taxpayer-funded bonus to help move back to the US.

• ICAC report into Gillman land deal blasts Renewal SA
• Fred Hansen to keep taxpayer-funded payout
• Gillman land deal ruled ‘irrational’ by Supreme Court

A FORMER State Government department head given a huge payout when sacked last year, and later found guilty of maladministration over the Gillman land deal, was also granted an extra $10,000 taxpayer-funded bonus to help move back to the United States.

Premier Jay Weatherill sacked former Renewal SA boss Fred Hansen just two months after last year’s election. This occurred as questions were asked about the process followed in the offloading of 400ha of public land at Gillman to a consortium which said it planned to build an oil and gas hub.

Mr Hansen was general manager of public transport provider TriMet in Portland, Oregon, between 1998 and 2010, before former premier Mike Rann brought him to Adelaide as a Thinker-In-Residence.

When sacked last year, Mr Hansen received a $385,000 payout because his contract was broken early.

In a written response to a question asked almost six months ago during Budget Estimates, it has now emerged that Mr Hansen: “Received an amount of $10,000 towards relocation of him and his spouse from Adelaide to the United States, in addition to the termination payments”.

It was also revealed that former Environment Protection Authority boss Campbell Gemmell, who resigned after the election, received $47,020 to effect his separation and relocate to Scotland.

Opposition wastewatch spokesman Stephan Knoll said making an extra payment to someone whose contract had been torn up was an example of “hopeless financial mismanagement”.

“Fred Hansen was a key player in Jay Weatherill and Tom Koutsantonis’ Gillman land deal, which was slammed by the ICAC and two Supreme Court judges,” he told The Advertiser.

“The Government’s decision to pay Mr Hansen to move back to America when they tore up his contract is outrageous. Why should South Australians have paid to ship out a man who the Premier decided was no longer his choice to run Renewal SA?”

A Government spokesman yesterday said: “It was negotiated at the settlement of Mr Hansen’s contract that the Government would meet relocation costs.”

Mr Hansen refused to return to Adelaide for ICAC hearings into the Gillman land deal, which made a finding of maladministration against him, but cleared both Mr Weatherill and Mr Koutsantonis.

“Mr Hansen did not perform his role as chief executive of the Urban Renewal Authority to a standard expected of a person in that position,” the ICAC found. “He consistently failed to keep the board acquainted with relevant information for the discharge of their duties.

“They are failures that should not have been made by executives in an agency whose core function was to manage transactions of this kind. They are failures that should not have occurred in respect of the largest single transaction to have been conducted by the URA.”