❓ Mr. Love questions the Minister for Mines and Petroleum about a failure to notify the Premier regarding an issue at the Gold Corporation. The Minister vehemently denies any wrongdoing, asserting the gold bars always met the 99.99% gold standard.
AnsweredQoN 171Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
GOLD CORPORATION — GOLD BAR CONTENT
171. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Mines and Petroleum:
I have a supplementary question. How
is it that the minister failed to notify the Premier of this significant issue,
noting that he was the minister responsible at the time of the doping and is
the guarantor of the gold?
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER : Order, please!
171. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Mines and Petroleum:
I have a supplementary question. How
is it that the minister failed to notify the Premier of this significant issue,
noting that he was the minister responsible at the time of the doping and is
the guarantor of the gold?
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER : Order, please!
AnswerView source ↗
Leaving aside the inaccuracies in
the question, I just want to drive at the answer. I have repeated this a hundred
times, and I will repeat it for the 101 st , and, eventually I hope,
the Leader of the Opposition will listen: all the gold bars produced by the
Perth Mint were always compliant. They have always contained 99.99 per cent
gold. That is what is stamped on the bars. I know this is confusing for the Leader
of the Opposition and I know there has been confusion in the community, but we
must not misunderstand the issue here. The issue was never the content of gold;
it was the question of what the non-gold content of the bar was. It was not
whether there was a short delivery of gold.
The Perth Mint does not actually charge for the 0.01 per cent that is not gold;
it charges for the 99.99 per cent that is gold. I know that that
confuses the Leader of the Opposition, but it does not confuse anybody else.
The reason the Shanghai Gold Exchange continues to deal with the Mint is that
it has satisfied itself with the approach the Mint takes. At no time did the
Shanghai Gold Exchange ask for any of the bars to be returned, for example.
That never occurred.
I know that an internal report that
was never provided to the board or to me was given to Four Corners . I am
not going to speculate on who gave that to Four Corners . The fact that
the author of the report was subsequently terminated
because of her failure to implement the changes from the Anti‑Money
Laundering and Counter‑ Terrorism Financing Act I am sure is not
related to the story getting to the ABC. I just make the point that that report
was in error. It said that the Mint might have to buy back 100 tonnes of gold.
That was never correct. We know it was not correct
because two and a half years later, we have never had to buy any gold back. But
let us assume that we had to buy the gold back. The gold would still
have been a hundred tonnes of gold. We buy 260 tonnes of gold every year. The
Mint buys over 15 tonnes of gold every month. The idea that gold is not a valuable
commodity is mind-blowingly stupid.
Let me make it clear: there was not,
and is not now, anything to report to the Premier about the gold-manufacturing
process at the Mint because on every day that this government has been in
power, all gold bars sold by the Mint have met the 99.99 per cent requirement,
which is what the Treasurer guarantees. The Treasurer does not guarantee 99.96 per
cent. I know that is confusing to the Leader of the Opposition, but it is not
an issue for me. Every day that we have been in government, Gold Corporation's
gold bars have contained the amount of gold given in the guarantee. There was
never an issue to raise with the Treasurer because every gold bar was compliant
with the standard that is stamped on the
gold bar, which, as I said to the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, is on the
website and is public to everybody.
the question, I just want to drive at the answer. I have repeated this a hundred
times, and I will repeat it for the 101 st , and, eventually I hope,
the Leader of the Opposition will listen: all the gold bars produced by the
Perth Mint were always compliant. They have always contained 99.99 per cent
gold. That is what is stamped on the bars. I know this is confusing for the Leader
of the Opposition and I know there has been confusion in the community, but we
must not misunderstand the issue here. The issue was never the content of gold;
it was the question of what the non-gold content of the bar was. It was not
whether there was a short delivery of gold.
The Perth Mint does not actually charge for the 0.01 per cent that is not gold;
it charges for the 99.99 per cent that is gold. I know that that
confuses the Leader of the Opposition, but it does not confuse anybody else.
The reason the Shanghai Gold Exchange continues to deal with the Mint is that
it has satisfied itself with the approach the Mint takes. At no time did the
Shanghai Gold Exchange ask for any of the bars to be returned, for example.
That never occurred.
I know that an internal report that
was never provided to the board or to me was given to Four Corners . I am
not going to speculate on who gave that to Four Corners . The fact that
the author of the report was subsequently terminated
because of her failure to implement the changes from the Anti‑Money
Laundering and Counter‑ Terrorism Financing Act I am sure is not
related to the story getting to the ABC. I just make the point that that report
was in error. It said that the Mint might have to buy back 100 tonnes of gold.
That was never correct. We know it was not correct
because two and a half years later, we have never had to buy any gold back. But
let us assume that we had to buy the gold back. The gold would still
have been a hundred tonnes of gold. We buy 260 tonnes of gold every year. The
Mint buys over 15 tonnes of gold every month. The idea that gold is not a valuable
commodity is mind-blowingly stupid.
Let me make it clear: there was not,
and is not now, anything to report to the Premier about the gold-manufacturing
process at the Mint because on every day that this government has been in
power, all gold bars sold by the Mint have met the 99.99 per cent requirement,
which is what the Treasurer guarantees. The Treasurer does not guarantee 99.96 per
cent. I know that is confusing to the Leader of the Opposition, but it is not
an issue for me. Every day that we have been in government, Gold Corporation's
gold bars have contained the amount of gold given in the guarantee. There was
never an issue to raise with the Treasurer because every gold bar was compliant
with the standard that is stamped on the
gold bar, which, as I said to the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, is on the
website and is public to everybody.
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