City Beat: ASIC won’t take any action on vocational college

Despite liquidators alleging a raft of a wrongdoing by the directors of a now-defunct southeast Queensland vocational college, ASIC has made clear it will be taking no action in the matter.

The owners of Tangalooma Island Resort have got planning approval for an expansion.

NO ACTION

It’s enough to make you entirely cynical and wonder why we even have a corporate cop.

Despite liquidators alleging a raft of a wrongdoing by the directors of a now-defunct Sunshine Coast vocational college, ASIC has made clear it will be taking no action in the matter — no prosecutions, no penalties.

That’s despite plenty of evidence about the inner workings of failed SC Admin Pty Ltd which was uncovered in a public examination in Brisbane Federal Court last year.

SC Admin, which acted as the financial management arm of Smart City Vocational College, collapsed in late 2016 with $8.1 million in debts, including $2.7 million owed to more than 300 employees.

Just a day after handing out pink slips in the week before Christmas that year, the three company directors--Jim Spong, his son Glenn Spong and Richard Thomas--jetted off to Bali for a three-week holiday with their families.

Smart City Vocational College CEO Glenn Spong

Records showed nearly $9 million in bonuses was paid to Spong family members and business associates in the 18 months before it all came crashing down. Each of the directors had also splashed out on homes worth well over $1 million in the previous three years.

In a final report to creditors this month, liquidator Paul Nogueira from insolvency firm Worrells alleged that a “voluminous number of transactions and claims’’ revealed insolvent trading, preferential payments to related parties, a shadow director, “unreasonable director related transactions’’ for various related entities and unpaid employee entitlements.

With James Spong declared bankrupt in July 2018 and many associated companies now gone bust, Nogueira concluded that pursuing further claims would be “uncommercial’’ and he’s closed the case.

So that’s it. With ASIC throwing in the towel too, no one gets held accountable for this disaster.

We were unable to reach the Spongs or Thomas for comment yesterday.

But we did discover that Thomas is now the sole director of an entity called National Debt Options Pty Ltd. You can’t make this stuff up.

RATES BATTLE

The owners of the iconic Tangalooma Island Resort off Brisbane have secured development approval to expand the scenic complex.

They’re hoping to add a new marina precinct and additional hotel rooms on their small slice of Moreton Island, which has enticed generations of holiday makers with gorgeous beaches, dolphins and wrecks.

But Brian Osbourne, who bought the perpetual lease in the early 1980s, and the dozen other co-owners are now locked in a long-running legal battle with the Brisbane City Council over a huge “infrastructure charges notice” which has been issued for the still-undeveloped 2.6ha site.

The council approved the proposed resort expansion in late 2018 but then demanded an eye-watering $534,181 for “stormwater, transport, public parks and land for community facilities’’.

A slight discount to $495,650 was then offered but Osbourne and his mates were having none of it.

Tangalooma Island Resort

They lodged an appeal in the Planning & Environment Court early last year, noting that the land is outside of the BCC’s “priority infrastructure area’’. They also stressed that all the roads, drains, parks and other facilities are not owned or maintained by the council.

Court-ordered mediation last year got nowhere and the matter is set for further review next month.

Osbourne, a former plasterer turned property developer who used to go camping on the island in his younger days, put the resort up for sale nearly two years ago.

But it was later taken off the market for reasons that remain unclear, although we understand the undisclosed asking price was not the issue.

Osbourne could not be reached for comment this week and resort director David James did not return a call.

Built in the 1970s, the resort generated a modest $1.4 million net profit in the last financial year based on $56.3 million in revenue, according to financial records lodged with ASIC. Both results were a slight improvement on 2018.