Qld: Torres Strait Island leaders dumped from council boards

AAP General News (Australia)
04-20-2000
Qld: Torres Strait Island leaders dumped from council boards

By Barbara Adam

BRISBANE, April 20 AAP - Torres Strait Island leaders implicated in an Auditor-General's
report last week have been dumped from a number of powerful council boards.

Earlier this week, Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Minister
Judy Spence gave the board of the Queensland government funded Island Industries Board,
known as IBIS, two weeks to show cause why they should not be sacked.

The minister's ultimatum followed last month's Auditor-General's report, which revealed
IBIS board members had charged funeral expenses totalling $100,000 to a state government
account.

The report found board members still owed about $53,000 for the August 1998 funeral
of Torres Strait Island elder Getano Lui Snr, father of IBIS chair Getano Lui Jnr.

Mr Lui Jnr was dumped from the IBIS board at an internal election yesterday and also
lost his position as chair of the Island Coordinating Council (ICC) at an election earlier
in the week, Ms Spence's office confirmed today.

Mr Lui Jnr had held both positions for more than a decade.

The new chair of the ICC is Henry Garnier from Hammond Island.

Elections were also held this week for chair of the Torres Strait Regional Authority.

Terry Waia (Waia) was elected to the position, replacing former chair John Abednego
(Abednego), who sat on the IBIS board during the time it accrued the massive funeral debts.

The elections substantially change the makeup of the indebted IBIS board, but it is
not clear how the elections affect the show cause notice issued to the IBIS at the weekend.

Ms Spence declined to comment on the outcome of the various Torres Strait Island elections.

AAP bja/jhm/bdm

KEYWORD: TORRES (CARRIED EARLIER)

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