The following letter from Tony Robinson, Victorian State Member for Mitcham,
may be of interest.



Richard Watson

Systems Engineer

Oscmar International Ltd

Auckland New Zealand

Phone +64 9 379 0360 ext 736

Mobile +64 212 073 165



____________________________________________________________________________
________________________

Richard,



The fight continues. I’ve sent a copy of earlier letter back to Minister and
sought his advice why the scheme is governed by “Operational Arrangements”
rather than legislation and/or regulations.



Regards

Tony Robinson



Mr Tony Robinson MP

Member for Mitcham

9 Blackburn Road

Blackburn Vic 3130



9 Feb 2005



Dear Mr Robinson



I refer to your letter of 7 December 2004 concerning General Employee
Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme (GEERS) claims from former workers of
Open Telecommunications (Open Tel). Your letter was addressed to Michael
Maynard, Assistant Director with the Department of Employment and Workplace
Relations.



Unfortunately my department has no record of any correspondence from you
dated 28 August 2003 to Mr Maynard. I am able, however, to provide you with
information regarding the outcome of claims for GEERS assistance by former
Open Tel employees.



My department administers GEERS in accordance with the GEERS Operational
Arrangements (OAs). The GEERS OAs set out the Scheme’s eligibility
requirements and assistance limits. The OSs are publicly available on the
Australian Workplace website: HYPERLINK
"http://www.workplace.gov.au/"www.workplace.gov.au .



The creditors of Open Tel voted for a Deed of Company Arrangement (DoCA),
the terms of which were inconsistent with the GEERS OAs. Consequently, my
department was unable to provide former Open Tel employees with GEERS
assistance.



To meet GEERS requirements, all funds made available under a DoCA,
irrespective of their source, must be distributed in a manner that does not
decrease the payment priority of employee creditors below that prescribed in
section 556 of the Corporations Act 2001 (the Act). In the case of Open
Tel, the directors of the company, via the administrators, put forward a
DoCA that altered the priority order set out in the Act.



I am further advised that my department was not provided with access to this
DoCA until after creditors of Open Tel had agreed upon it. Once the
department was provided with a copy of the DoCA, and it was clear that it
was in conflict with the GEERS OAs, my department wrote to the administrator
advising that in order to obtain GEERS assistance, an amendment to the DoCA
would be required. The Open Tel directors declined to amend the DoCA.



It is the actions of the Open Tel directors that have denied the former
employees of Open Tel access to GEERS and not any alleged deficiency of the
GEERS scheme.



I hope this information satisfies your request. If you wish to forward a
copy of the earlier correspondence you cite, and have any particular issues
not covered in my response above, I would be happy to provide further
information.



Yours sincerely



Kevin Andrews

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service






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