6_litre_man
13-09-2010, 06:20 PM
Got this sent to me by email. A very reliable source can back a lot of this up aswell. Its a long article but it shows why a lot of people hate jim read
As the Sydney Dragway thunders into action this weekend, Rick Feneley investigates the taxpayer-fuelled business - and asks why it can afford to make big donations to the Labor Party.
From a standing start, it will take as little as 4.6 seconds for a top fuel dragster to cover the 400-metre strip at Eastern Creek today. Those heartstopping seconds, at 520km/h, will send tremors through the spectator stands and flaming jets of nitromethane from the exhaust.
It will cost each top fuel team as much as $12,000 for that single rush. It's not a cheap sport, and few dragsters at the national titles this weekend will roar louder than Jim Read's two fuel cars, worth more than $250,000 each.
A former champion racer, James Arthur Read now boasts the most successful top fuel team in Australia. He has also spent the past six years at the helm of the Western Sydney International Dragway Ltd. It is known as WSID, pronounced wizard. Read, as chief executive and executive director, is the wizard of WSID.
His detractors in the racing community say he runs it as his fiefdom. His wife, Denise, works on merchandising and is in charge of attracting corporate sponsors; his son Phil, when not racing his father's cars (4.72 seconds yesterday), gets plumbing work; another son, Luke, has done maintenance; one stepdaughter, Monique, has worked on the public address system, while another, Melissa, has sold programs and worked as a cleaner; and a nephew, Michael Ryan, was a caretaker, which entailed living in a portable home on the site with his partner, who worked as an events manager.
Now the state Coalition, the Greens and some drag racers - among the 400 who will compete this weekend - are asking questions about the way Sydney Dragway, as it is now known, operates. The Coalition wants the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to investigate.
The dragway, built with $30 million of NSW taxpayers' money, opened in February 2004. Erected on a state-owned paddock, it has since received about $3 million in government grants for upgrades, plus more than $1 million in a waiver of its rent for the first five years, in recognition of its capital investments.
WSID has shown its gratitude, not to taxpayers but to the NSW Labor Party. Unbeknown to many in the drag-racing community, it has donated $168,050 to the party since 2003, according to NSW Election Funding Authority records.
WSID's chairman, Tony Beuk, is a former Labor deputy mayor of Liverpool. He was an IT worker for the NSW ALP when he joined the board of WSID in 2004. Beuk's now ex-wife is one of WSID's six board members.
In the NSW upper house, the Greens' Sylvia Hale asked if the government was aware of a 2006 meeting between Read, Beuk and Morris Iemma, the then premier, at Iemma's home. Iemma told the Herald he recalled no such meeting at his home but said he met both men many times in his capacity as the public works and sport minister who approved the project, and later as Premier, to address their legitimate concerns.
Until now, Iemma said, he had never heard of the donations. At no stage, he said, did Beuk mention their Labor connections.
''There's no law against making donations,'' Iemma said. ''Was it ever a consideration in any decision the government has ever made? No.''
Beuk, answering questions on his and Read's behalf, said: ''The payments to NSW Labor was for a subscription service providing up-to-date information forums which the organisation deemed appropriate due to the changes occurring in government that may affect the facility.''
He said the $168,050 figure was wrong and, when asked how, said he had a record of only one donation, not the four listed by the NSW authority. The Australian Electoral Commission record shows two donations worth $107,200 from WSID to Labor, but it does not mention $59,850 in 2008 and $1000 to the former local MP Diane Beamer - probably an oversight, according to analysis by Norman Thompson, the director of the Greens' Democracy4Sale research project.
Any political donation is galling for some in the punter class of dragway enthusiasts, the ''sportsman'' racers such as Lyle Gilmore. In an exchange of emails with Beuk, Gilmore quotes from WSID's annual reports of 2006 to 2009. He notes it would have ''racked up a loss of $1,690,510'' for those years if not for government grants amounting to $3,226,842.
Read's remuneration package last year was $250,184, more than triple his $81,750 in 2005. Beuk earned $27,250 that year but $124,641 last year. Gilmore and other racers who spoke to Herald questioned these salaries while gate prices had risen and drivers' entry fees were more than $200 above those at the Perth dragway.
Some of Sydney Dragway's sponsors - including McDonald's, Auto One and Wynn's - are also sponsors for Jim Read Racing. Another sponsor, with its logo on the prime mover that Read's team uses to transport its dragsters, has been Mulgoa Quarries. In Parliament, the Greens asked if Mulgoa Quarries was charged a tipping fee to dump about a million tonnes of landfill at the dragway. Hale wanted to know if the dragway's landlord, the government, received any slice of such a fee. It didn't.
Beuk said certified fill was needed to build the dragway's car park and Mulgoa Quarries was engaged to undertake works. ''This filling was undertaken at a market rate. The value was split between agreed construction works and revenue to Sydney Dragway recorded in its financial reports and its audited reports.''
The dragway is obliged under its lease to show such audits to the government. Correspondence obtained by the opposition, under Freedom-of-Information laws, suggests that in 2008 WSID had not fulfilled that obligation for two years - and the Sport and Recreation department asked it to comply urgently. Drag racers complain WSID is an effective closed shop. Its only members are the six people on the board. Becoming a member requires two board members to support an applicant. One top fuel racer, Phil Lamattina, has been waiting five months for his application to be considered. Now he has brought in his lawyers. He would not comment, but sources say Lamattina wants to force open the door so hundreds of drag racers can become members - and vote in a new board.
On the jobs for Read's family, Beuk said the dragway, ''prior to its opening and during its operational commencement, relied on a large number of people. The majority of these people are no longer directly involved with the facility''.
Asked about the potential for a conflict of interest regarding sponsors, Beuk said Read's ''sponsorship arrangements have no relationship to this facility''. His sponsors had been arranged before the dragway opened or had ''chosen to make separate agreements with the track''.
Read has said previously that he had paid back a loan of $200,000 from the dragway.
Beuk said his migrant parents, farmers, had ''instilled in me integrity … I am proud of what I have done in renewing motor sport in NSW. My membership of the Labor Party is a personal choice and is separate from my professional involvement at Sydney Dragway''.
When asked if it was appropriate that taxpayers' money for the dragway had been fed back to the Labor Party, the Minister for Western Sydney, David Borger, said: ''Donations are not sought from such organisations; notwithstanding this, all donations are publicly declared and subject to scrutiny by the public. It's open to Western Sydney International Dragway Ltd to review their donations policy.''
Mr Borger also said: ''We helped deliver this project because it was good for the economy and good for western Sydney … its construction created 1500 jobs and enhanced tourism and investment opportunities.''
But the opposition spokesman for sport and recreation, Kevin Humphries, called for ASIC to investigate. He said: ''State Labor has failed in its due diligence to ensure the dragway is meeting the needs of the sport and its participants … the public has a right to know that their assets are being managed properly.''
Iemma described Read as a ''passionate'' advocate for his sport. He expressed sympathy for WSID's frustration over planning restrictions that had limited its commercial operations and for its ''valid criticism'' of the government for years of delays to its lease agreement.
Lyle Gilmore would be happy to see a toilet built in the sportsman pit where the punters congregate. Many here compete in lovingly modified street sedans. Gilmore says they are the bread and butter of the sport but, while others spend millions, these drivers and their families must walk for 10 to 15 minutes just to spend a penny.
As the Sydney Dragway thunders into action this weekend, Rick Feneley investigates the taxpayer-fuelled business - and asks why it can afford to make big donations to the Labor Party.
From a standing start, it will take as little as 4.6 seconds for a top fuel dragster to cover the 400-metre strip at Eastern Creek today. Those heartstopping seconds, at 520km/h, will send tremors through the spectator stands and flaming jets of nitromethane from the exhaust.
It will cost each top fuel team as much as $12,000 for that single rush. It's not a cheap sport, and few dragsters at the national titles this weekend will roar louder than Jim Read's two fuel cars, worth more than $250,000 each.
A former champion racer, James Arthur Read now boasts the most successful top fuel team in Australia. He has also spent the past six years at the helm of the Western Sydney International Dragway Ltd. It is known as WSID, pronounced wizard. Read, as chief executive and executive director, is the wizard of WSID.
His detractors in the racing community say he runs it as his fiefdom. His wife, Denise, works on merchandising and is in charge of attracting corporate sponsors; his son Phil, when not racing his father's cars (4.72 seconds yesterday), gets plumbing work; another son, Luke, has done maintenance; one stepdaughter, Monique, has worked on the public address system, while another, Melissa, has sold programs and worked as a cleaner; and a nephew, Michael Ryan, was a caretaker, which entailed living in a portable home on the site with his partner, who worked as an events manager.
Now the state Coalition, the Greens and some drag racers - among the 400 who will compete this weekend - are asking questions about the way Sydney Dragway, as it is now known, operates. The Coalition wants the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to investigate.
The dragway, built with $30 million of NSW taxpayers' money, opened in February 2004. Erected on a state-owned paddock, it has since received about $3 million in government grants for upgrades, plus more than $1 million in a waiver of its rent for the first five years, in recognition of its capital investments.
WSID has shown its gratitude, not to taxpayers but to the NSW Labor Party. Unbeknown to many in the drag-racing community, it has donated $168,050 to the party since 2003, according to NSW Election Funding Authority records.
WSID's chairman, Tony Beuk, is a former Labor deputy mayor of Liverpool. He was an IT worker for the NSW ALP when he joined the board of WSID in 2004. Beuk's now ex-wife is one of WSID's six board members.
In the NSW upper house, the Greens' Sylvia Hale asked if the government was aware of a 2006 meeting between Read, Beuk and Morris Iemma, the then premier, at Iemma's home. Iemma told the Herald he recalled no such meeting at his home but said he met both men many times in his capacity as the public works and sport minister who approved the project, and later as Premier, to address their legitimate concerns.
Until now, Iemma said, he had never heard of the donations. At no stage, he said, did Beuk mention their Labor connections.
''There's no law against making donations,'' Iemma said. ''Was it ever a consideration in any decision the government has ever made? No.''
Beuk, answering questions on his and Read's behalf, said: ''The payments to NSW Labor was for a subscription service providing up-to-date information forums which the organisation deemed appropriate due to the changes occurring in government that may affect the facility.''
He said the $168,050 figure was wrong and, when asked how, said he had a record of only one donation, not the four listed by the NSW authority. The Australian Electoral Commission record shows two donations worth $107,200 from WSID to Labor, but it does not mention $59,850 in 2008 and $1000 to the former local MP Diane Beamer - probably an oversight, according to analysis by Norman Thompson, the director of the Greens' Democracy4Sale research project.
Any political donation is galling for some in the punter class of dragway enthusiasts, the ''sportsman'' racers such as Lyle Gilmore. In an exchange of emails with Beuk, Gilmore quotes from WSID's annual reports of 2006 to 2009. He notes it would have ''racked up a loss of $1,690,510'' for those years if not for government grants amounting to $3,226,842.
Read's remuneration package last year was $250,184, more than triple his $81,750 in 2005. Beuk earned $27,250 that year but $124,641 last year. Gilmore and other racers who spoke to Herald questioned these salaries while gate prices had risen and drivers' entry fees were more than $200 above those at the Perth dragway.
Some of Sydney Dragway's sponsors - including McDonald's, Auto One and Wynn's - are also sponsors for Jim Read Racing. Another sponsor, with its logo on the prime mover that Read's team uses to transport its dragsters, has been Mulgoa Quarries. In Parliament, the Greens asked if Mulgoa Quarries was charged a tipping fee to dump about a million tonnes of landfill at the dragway. Hale wanted to know if the dragway's landlord, the government, received any slice of such a fee. It didn't.
Beuk said certified fill was needed to build the dragway's car park and Mulgoa Quarries was engaged to undertake works. ''This filling was undertaken at a market rate. The value was split between agreed construction works and revenue to Sydney Dragway recorded in its financial reports and its audited reports.''
The dragway is obliged under its lease to show such audits to the government. Correspondence obtained by the opposition, under Freedom-of-Information laws, suggests that in 2008 WSID had not fulfilled that obligation for two years - and the Sport and Recreation department asked it to comply urgently. Drag racers complain WSID is an effective closed shop. Its only members are the six people on the board. Becoming a member requires two board members to support an applicant. One top fuel racer, Phil Lamattina, has been waiting five months for his application to be considered. Now he has brought in his lawyers. He would not comment, but sources say Lamattina wants to force open the door so hundreds of drag racers can become members - and vote in a new board.
On the jobs for Read's family, Beuk said the dragway, ''prior to its opening and during its operational commencement, relied on a large number of people. The majority of these people are no longer directly involved with the facility''.
Asked about the potential for a conflict of interest regarding sponsors, Beuk said Read's ''sponsorship arrangements have no relationship to this facility''. His sponsors had been arranged before the dragway opened or had ''chosen to make separate agreements with the track''.
Read has said previously that he had paid back a loan of $200,000 from the dragway.
Beuk said his migrant parents, farmers, had ''instilled in me integrity … I am proud of what I have done in renewing motor sport in NSW. My membership of the Labor Party is a personal choice and is separate from my professional involvement at Sydney Dragway''.
When asked if it was appropriate that taxpayers' money for the dragway had been fed back to the Labor Party, the Minister for Western Sydney, David Borger, said: ''Donations are not sought from such organisations; notwithstanding this, all donations are publicly declared and subject to scrutiny by the public. It's open to Western Sydney International Dragway Ltd to review their donations policy.''
Mr Borger also said: ''We helped deliver this project because it was good for the economy and good for western Sydney … its construction created 1500 jobs and enhanced tourism and investment opportunities.''
But the opposition spokesman for sport and recreation, Kevin Humphries, called for ASIC to investigate. He said: ''State Labor has failed in its due diligence to ensure the dragway is meeting the needs of the sport and its participants … the public has a right to know that their assets are being managed properly.''
Iemma described Read as a ''passionate'' advocate for his sport. He expressed sympathy for WSID's frustration over planning restrictions that had limited its commercial operations and for its ''valid criticism'' of the government for years of delays to its lease agreement.
Lyle Gilmore would be happy to see a toilet built in the sportsman pit where the punters congregate. Many here compete in lovingly modified street sedans. Gilmore says they are the bread and butter of the sport but, while others spend millions, these drivers and their families must walk for 10 to 15 minutes just to spend a penny.