HIGH COURT WRIT

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 29, 3 August 1926, Page 7

HIGH COURT WRIT

CITY COUNCIL METHODS IN SYDNEY BIG CONTRACTS QUERIED FEDERAL INTERVENTION. . / (United Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 3rd August, 10 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The Federal Attorney: General has issued a High Court writ against the Sydney City Council and the Commonwealth Shipping Board to restrain the council from giving certain contracts to the Shipping Board and to restrain the board from accepting the contracts. The most important aspect of the matter from the citizens' viewpoint is that it is an investigation by the highest tribunal in Australia into the circumstances under whi.h two most important contracts, involving £765,----438, for equipment by the new powerhouse were decided by a majority in the City Council. On 22nd March the Labour aldermen of the Sydney City Council, on a purely party vote of 12 to 9, forced through a decision to accept five contracts submitted by the Commonwealth Shipping Board for turbo-alternators required in connection with a new electric powerhouse. The material was to cost £700,000; and the machines would be constructed at Cockatoo Island Dockyard. The Reform aldermen raised the question of whether Cockatoo Island was capable of carrying out the work, and whether a Government concern had a legal right to compete with local industrial firms. They also urged consideration of an English tender, which, besides being lower, would provide a larger amount of work in Australia, L t discussion was gagged. The manner in which the contracts, involving about a million sterling, for plant and machinery for the Electricity Department, were decided in committee and in council, caused considerable dissatisfaction and uneasiness in civic circle^, and legal advice was received from a leading King's Counsel to the effect that certain decisions of the council for various reasons were ultra vires. As a consequence, it was decided to invoke the aid of the Law Courts with the object of securing a thtrough investigation of the circumstances surrounding the placing of the contracts.