Warren Truss dismisses Airservices plea over new CEO

Warren Truss has declined ­requests to delay the appointment of a new chief executive for Air­services Australia.

Air­services Australia acting cheif executive Jason Harfield.

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss has declined bipartisan ­requests to ensure no new chief executive is appointed at Air­services Australia before the findings of an investigation into dealings over the $1.5 billion OneSky air traffic control project are known.

The developments come as Airservices is trying to distance acting chief executive Jason Harfield from a role in OneSky over the ­period under investigation by the Australian National Audit Office.

As revealed by The Australian, ANAO late last year launched an urgent inquiry into contracts awarded by Airservices to consultants associated with an obscure Canberra-based organisation with international military links called the International Centre for Complex Project Management.

ANAO is assessing whether these dealings involved perceived or actual conflicts of interest. It is due to report in the autumn ­session of parliament.

At a hearing in August, members of the Senate rural and regional affairs and transport legislation committee grilled Mr Harfield and other Airservices executives, claiming the arrangements with ICCPM were conflicted.

The committee heard that ICCPM managing director Deborah Hein is the wife of Steve Hein, who worked for ICCPM until hired by Airservices in a senior managerial role. One contract Airservices struck with ICCPM was processed by Mr Hein.

Airservices hired an ICCPM consultant, Harry Bradford, to negotiate on its behalf with the prime contractor on the OneSky project, aerospace group Thales Australia, when the managing director of Thales, Chris Jenkins, was also the chairman of ICCPM.

The committee chairman, Liberal Bill Heffernan, told the hearing the dealings would “not pass the public test … it sounds dodgy”.

Mr Bradford, who has been paid more than $1 million by Airservices, is a former RAAF officer, and has since replaced Mr Jenkins as ICCPM chairman.

Insiders in the aviation community suggest Mr Harfield, a former air traffic controller with 26 years at Airservices, is favoured by the board to become CEO, and that a commissioned executive search by a headhunter group could be ignored.

“It is such an incestuous setup that the board will probably say, ‘Oh, we will get one of our own ­little pet cats in there’,’’ Senator Heffernan said at a committee hearing last year.

Asked whether Mr Truss — whose transport portfolio covers government-owned Airservices — would guarantee no CEO appointment would be made until the ANAO report is tabled, his spokesman said Airservices chairman Angus Houston had “comprehensively addressed those issues” at a Senate committee hearing last year.

But Senator Heffernan and the deputy chair of the committee, Labor’s Glenn Sterle, both told The Australian this week they would prefer no appointment were made before the ANAO report is brought down.

“I would have thought given the vagaries of what went on, they should do the audit office the courtesy of receiving its ­report before making the Airservices appointment,” Senator Heffernan said. “That is in no way to imply anything against any individual.”

An Airservices spokesperson said it would be “misleading” to suggest Mr Harfield had previously been the executive at Airservices with prime responsibility for the introduction of OneSky, which is designed to integrate civilian and military radar and air traffic control systems, saying “no one person within Airservices” had prime responsibility.

In his LinkedIn resume, Mr Harfield says he was executive general manager for future service delivery from July 2013 to ­August 2015: “In this senior executive role I have the accountability for the leadership, acquisition and delivery of Airservices’ next generation services and harmonised Australian Air Traffic Management system with the Department of Defence.

“This role also has the responsibility of the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for the purposes of managing the portfolio and ­program complexity associated with delivery of the new Air ­Traffic Management system.”