Sacked executive at centre of Gillman deal to keep taxpayer-funded payout

THE sacked senior bureaucrat at the centre of the scathing report into the controversial Gillman land deal will get to keep his $385,000 taxpayer-funded payout.

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THE sacked senior bureaucrat at the centre of the state’s corruption watchdog’s scathing report into the controversial Gillman land deal will keep his $385,000 taxpayer-funded payout.

Former Renewal SA chief executive Fred Hansen was sacked in May last year when Premier Jay Weatherill put a post-election broom through the state’s public service.

Deputy Opposition leader Vickie Chapman has called on the State Government to review Mr Hansen’s contract to see if any of the payout could be recouped following the Gillman report.

Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Bruce Lander, QC, found that Mr Hansen engaged in “maladministration” which resulted in “substantial mismanagement of public resources” and that he failed to fulfil his role as head of the Government authority.

“These were serious failures. They are failures that should not have been made by executives in an agency whose core function was to manage transactions of this kind,” he said.

But Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis, who Mr Lander cleared of maladministration but was critical of some of his conduct, told State Parliament that the Government was not pursuing Mr Hansen to repay all or part of his payout.

Mr Hansen, a former Thinker in Residence, was appointed the inaugural head of Renewal SA in 2012. Since being axed, Mr Hansen has returned to the US.