I got it wrong, Michael Quigley tells MPs

NBN chief Michael Quigley has admitted making more incorrect claims about his past as one of the top executives of French telecommunications giant Alcatel.

Michael Quigley

NATIONAL Broadband Network chief Michael Quigley has admitted making more incorrect claims about his past as one of the top executives of French telecommunications giant Alcatel, which was involved in widespread corruption across the globe.

In 2009, when Mr Quigley was appointed to the $1.8 million-a-year job of running Australia's biggest infrastructure project, the federal government was unaware that Alcatel was then the subject of a five-year US government investigation.

After this fact was revealed by The Australian late last month, Mr Quigley wrote in an opinion piece that he had not told the government of the corruption investigation at Alcatel because the investigation had been resolved and was "ancient history".

At the first public hearing of the joint parliamentary committee into the $36 billion NBN yesterday, chaired by independent Rob Oakeshott, Mr Quigley admitted his claims about the investigation were incorrect - after he was presented with publicly available Alcatel documents that disproved them.

Other MPs to question Mr Quigley included opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull.

In a written statement, presented outside the committee hearing, Mr Oakeshott praised The Australian's coverage of Mr Quigley's past at Alcatel. "I think on this particular occasion they (The Australian) have done some good work in the public interest, and this has been backed up by the NBN committee evidence today," he wrote.

The investigation into Alcatel by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Department of Justice continued until last December. The US government and Alcatel reached an agreement, under which the telco is required to pay fines of $US137m ($130m), but it is yet to be approved by a US court.

Separately, in an opening statement to the committee, Mr Quigley "unreservedly apologised" for incorrectly stating publicly that during his time at Alcatel, he was not responsible for overseeing operations in Costa Rica. Mr Quigley reiterated he was never investigated by the SEC and the US Justice Department. Further, he said Alcatel had in December announced he was not involved in, nor had any knowledge of, the corruption at Alcatel. There is no suggestion Mr Quigley was involved in the corruption.

The Australian last week revealed that Mr Quigley was head of Alcatel Americas, which covered both North, Central and South America, from March 2001 to January 2003.

Alcatel's global corrupt dealings, including bribing government officials in exchange for lucrative contracts, were first exposed in Costa Rica. Alcatel employees paid more than $7 million in bribes to corrupt officials in the Central American country in return for hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts.

Revelations of those bribes in Costa Rica kick-started the US government's five year investigation into Alcatel.

Mr Quigley told the parliamentary hearing yesterday he previously did not believe he was responsible for Costa Rica because he had spoken to a former colleague, currently at Alcatel, who had provided him with this information.

The NBN chief executive yesterday also clarified an assertion he made in an article published in The Australian on May 5, in which he said it was Alcatel who reported the corruption to authorities. Presented with publicly available documents, Mr Quigley agreed it was Costa Rican officials who had contacted Alcatel over the corruption and that he had referred to Alcatel passing this on to US authorities.

The Australian yesterday revealed Mr Quigley was also responsible for three other countries in Latin America where Alcatel employees paid bribes to corrupt officials to win contracts. Those countries were Honduras, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

For the past two days Mr Quigley has refused to comment when asked about his responsibilities concerning those three countries. He was not questioned about those three countries at yesterday's committee hearing.

Julia Gillard yesterday did not respond to a question regarding the revelations about Mr Quigley's past at Alcatel.

Following his role as Alcatel America's president, Mr Quigley was later president and chief operating officer of Alcatel global in 2005 and 2006.

The SEC claims Alcatel employees continued bribing officials for more than 18 months -between October 2004 and June 2006 - despite Alcatel being aware, from October 2004, that its employees had "paid bribes at the highest level of the Costa Rican government using sham consultants".

Mr Turnbull said Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and the government should have been more aware of Mr Quigley's role with Alcatel.