Queensland Motorways director Luigi Casagrande's academic credentials questioned
Tuck Thompson and Natascha Mirosch
From: The Courier-Mail - Brisbane
June 07, 2010 12:01AM
PROOF DEMANDED: Luigi Casagrande has been told to produce his academic record. 'I don't have to tell you where my degree is from,' he says. Picture: Derek Moore Source: The Courier-Mail
QUEENSLAND Motorways has asked for proof of the academic credentials of its long-time director, Luigi Casagrande, the man the state entrusted with the $2.1 billion upgrade of the Gateway Bridge.
According to Queensland Motorways, Mr Casagrande told them he had an engineering degree from the University of Padua in northern Italy.
He is described as "Dott Ing (Padua)", which denotes the holder of an advanced engineering degree, in at least three company annual reports but the credential is not supported by the university.
"We couldn't find a record of a Luigi Casagrande having studied engineering here," archive director Gianni Penzo said.
Queensland Motorways removed the credential from its 2009 annual report.
It also has been removed from the government-owned corporation's website.
The Dott Ing degree, the equivalent to a masters, takes up to five years to complete. Mr Casagrande refused to confirm his academic credentials to The Courier-Mail, saying: "I've never worked as an engineer in Australia.
"I never used my degree. I always said I haven't got a recognised degree in Australia."
He said he had a degree but "didn't say it was from Padua".
"There is no engineering degree at Padua. I don't have to tell you where my degree is from," he said.
But Mr Penzo said: "Yes, we have had an engineering degree here. We've offered it here since 1933."
Queensland Motorways said Mr Casagrande supplied the academic information used in its annual reports.
Mr Casagrande, who chaired the committee overseeing the Gateway Bridge duplication, has been a director since 1995 but Queensland Motorways has never verified his academic qualifications.
Queensland Motorways chief executive Phil Mumford now has asked Mr Casagrande to provide a copy of the credentials.
Mr Casagrande supplied the information annually until 2009, when he replaced it with an Order of Australia Award he won that year.
Queensland Motorways said his academic credentials were removed at his request.
Mr Casagrande's other credentials as president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Brisbane also are being amended.
He resigned on May 25 during a board meeting which had sought an audit of the organisation's finances.
"It's fair to say the chamber is financially stressed," said veteran politician Santo Santoro, who has taken over as president on an interim basis.
Italy's Queensland Consul, Dr Francesco Capecchi, said his Government had given the chamber about $60,000 last year and he could "confirm there are some problems . . . with budget issues".
Mr Casagrande would not discuss the chamber's finances.
Mostia Constructions Pty Ltd, where Mr Casagrande and his wife are shareholders and directors, faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for alleged building flaws to Raby Harbour Marina and was investigated by the state following allegations the company had drilled through an excessive number of steel reinforcement bars during work on Brisbane's Captain Cook Bridge.
Motorways boss faces loss of medal
by Tuck Thompson
From: The Courier-Mail- Brisbane
June 07, 2010 9:40PM
PROOF DEMANDED: Luigi Casagrande has been told to produce his academic record. 'I don't have to tell you where my degree is from,' he says. Picture: Derek Moore Source: The Courier-Mail
A QUEENSLAND Motorways director could be forced to surrender his Order of Australia medal if it is established he fabricated his credentials.
Luigi Casagrande, who the Queensland Government entrusted with the $2.1 billion Gateway Bridge upgrade, claimed in annual reports of the government-owned company he has an advanced degree. But the University of Padua in northern Italy has no record of it.
Mr Casagrande (pictured) won an Order of Australia Medal last year, but it may be withdrawn if officials determine his actions have created disrepute.
Queensland Motorways last week asked Mr Casagrande to provide evidence of his degree, but nothing was learnt yesterday.
"We have no further update at this stage," a QML spokeswoman said.
Sharon Prendergast, director of the Australian Honours and Awards Secretariat, said the council that recommends OAM awards could reconsider the honour once the facts are brought to their attention.
Awards can be cancelled for a number of reasons, including criminal convictions, civil penalties, adverse findings of a tribunal, false or misleading nominations or disreputable actions.
For privacy reasons, she declined to reveal whether Mr Casagrande had claimed the suspect credential any material submitted to the award council.
Mr Casagrande won the award for building industry achievements and services to the Italian community.
On May 25, he resigned as president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Brisbane.
The new president and the Italian consul say the organisation is financially 'stressed" and its finances are being audited.
Queensland Motorways has refused to disclose how much Mr Casagrande has earned in directors fees from the government-owned company.
Opposition transport spokeswoman Fiona Simpson said the public had a right to know his pay and whether Mr Casagrande was appointed to the Queensland Motorways board on the basis of his engineering qualifications.
The situation also raised questions about the level of checking being done about the qualifications of directors.
Mr Casagrande has served on the Queensland Motorways board since 1995, but no one there ever confirmed his academic credentials.
Last year, he requested his academic credentials be removed and replaced with the OAM.
Queensland Motorways said it is not required to verify the qualifications of directors under the Corporations Act.
"Queensland Motorways directors update their biographies annually. Mr Casagrande did not explain the changes to his updated biography last year and he was not required to do so," a spokeswoman said
Queensland Motorway director Luigi Casagrande made court oath about credentials
by Tuck Thompson
From: The Courier-Mail
June 23, 2010 11:00PM
PROBE: Luigi Casagrande, who was appointed to the QML board by the Labor government in 1995. Source: The Courier-Mail
A LONGTIME Queensland Motorways director who resigned amid allegations he faked his academic credentials also claimed under oath before a District Court judge that he had the credentials.
Luigi Casagrande, who was appointed to the QML board by the Labor government in 1995 and went on trade trips to Europe with former premier Peter Beattie, stepped down after a university in northern Italy said it had no record of his claims to have an advanced engineering degree.
Until his resignation, Mr Casagrande chaired a committee overseeing the $2.1 billion Gateway Bridge upgrade, the biggest road and bridge project in Queensland history.
Queensland Motorways failed to check Mr Casagrande's qualifications despite concerns raised as early as 2007, when there was controversy over his construction firm's gantry work on the Captain Cook Bridge.
Documents obtained by The Courier-Mail show Mr Casagrande testified under oath in a District Court lawsuit in 1995 that he had an advanced engineering degree.
"I have an engineering qualification from Padova (Padua) University in Italy as a mechanical engineer and a Master Engineering in 1970 from Padova in Italy," he said in sworn testimony before judge A. J. Healy.
The lawsuit was filed by architect David Cox against Mostia Constructions, which is owned and managed by Mr Casagrande and his wife.
The suit took six years before Mr Cox prevailed. Another lawsuit against Mostia remains in the Queensland Supreme Court, with allegations by UI International that Mostia's work on the Raby Bay Harbour development was substandard.
Mostia has accused UI of not paying the company enough.
A Justice Department spokesman was unclear about who would investigate Mr Casagrande if a complaint was made against him.
Mr Casagrande is already under investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for claiming repeatedly in Queensland Motorways' annual reports he had a "Dott Ing" degree from Padua.
The archives director for the university said he had reviewed Padua's records and, going back to 1960, there were no records of Mr Casagrande having received such a degree.
Mr Casagrande last year received an Order of Australia for his building achievements.
The AO panel is reviewing the award in the light of The Courier-Mail's reports.
ABC Radio Australia
Italian translations of the truth
By James Panichi
Updated Fri Jun 11, 2010 2:21pm AEST
The resignation of Queensland Motorways director Luigi Casagrande this week may have come as a surprise to his fellow board members. But anyone who has followed Italian politics in Australia in recent years knows there's more to The Courier-Mail's scoop on Casagrande's academic qualifications than meets the eye.
The story is first and foremost one which centres on a bitter feud over pre-selection among Australian-based supporters of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The decision to choose Casagrande, a successful Queensland builder and businessman, as the centre-right's candidate for the new, Australia-based 'international' electorate of the Italian parliament sparked an all-out catfight. That clash ultimately led to a lawsuit for defamation, which was resolved in the New South Wales Supreme Court in April 2009.
I covered the controversy for ABC Radio National's Background Briefing program in late 2008 and unearthed the same evidence casting doubts over Casagrande's academic claims.
However, by the time it went to air, my program had tightened its focus on more newsworthy issues, including the likely candidacy of Australian sport legends David Campese and Frank Farina, and a secret deal by ALP members in Melbourne to control the pre-selection process for the centre-left.
As a result, Casagrande's background - and his response to my inquiries - ended up on the cutting-room floor. It was a decision I was happy with at the time.
My research back in 2008 raised questions over Casagrande's claim on the website of Queensland Motorways that he had an engineering degree from the University of Padua - which is what the suffix dott. ing. (Padua) implied.
Working through the Padua-based journalist Luca Barbieri, an investigative reporter for Corriere del Veneto, I managed to get the then-manager for archives at the Universita di Padova to search both his electronic and paper records.
The manager, by the name of Donato Sigolo, sent me and Luca an email confirming that after an extensive search he had been unable to find any evidence that the Venice-born Luigi Casagrande had ever been a student.
The following day I contacted Casagrande and had a lively exchange. Speaking in Italian, Mr Casagrande said he had a degree to prove his claims. "I've got it, I've got it, I've go it," he said. "What's more, I also completed an MA four years later."
Yet further on in our conversation he appeared to back away from the claim, saying that if Padua had no records of his degree it was because "I started the degree there, but I finished it [in Australia]".
When I asked him about the Masters, he told me that he completed it "between Padua and [the University of] Bologna." However, he told me he was reluctant to release the documentation because he feared his political rival in Australia, Giampiero Pallotta, would "misuse the information".
At that stage, Casagrande was locked in a damaging feud with Pallotta over the choice of candidates.
The Sydney-based Pallotta, who was the Australian chairman of what was then Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, had put up the high-profile Italian-Australians Farina and Campese as candidates for the 2006 election. Casagrande insisted that he and Sydney businesswoman Teresa Restifa be the two candidates and he successfully lobbied Forza Italia's international coordinator in Milan.
The controversy ultimately went nowhere. In spite of a vigorous campaign in and around Australia's Italian communities, Casagrande lost both the 2006 and 2008 polls, with two Melbourne-based centre-left candidates elected to the Italian parliament.
I can now reveal that when Pallotta found out I had been in touch with Padua, he asked me to provide him with the email from Sigolo to assist him in a defamation lawsuit brought against him by Casagrande in the New South Wales Supreme Court. I declined.
This week, Pallotta revealed to me that after his conversation with me he got in touch with Padua and managed to get the same information from another University employee. He was also happy to admit that he fed the information to The Courier-Mail journalist Tuck Thompson, who ran with the story.
Yet perhaps more importantly for Casagrande's political future, the controversy over his degree may not prove particularly damaging to his standing in Australia's Italian community.
Questions over Casagrande qualifications were raised in the lead-up to the 2006 poll, for obvious reasons. Obtaining a degree from an Italian university is a long, hard slog - particularly one in engineering. The age of graduation is usually 30 or over and it's impossible (at least, it used to be) to go through the process without gaining a solid education.
However, the Italian spoken by Casagrande is that of a self-taught migrant, often struggling with the all-important subjunctive and lacking in sophistication. Italian-Australians quickly put two and two together and the reference to Casagrande as dott. ing. on the Queensland Motorways website became a joke.
When the same qualifications were alluded to on the website of Italy's president - from whom Casagrande had received the impressive title of Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarieta Italiana - again some unkind mirth ensued. However, in 2008 the Italian Embassy in Canberra assured me no laws had been broken - you can tell the president you're from Mars and no-one would care.
However, embellishing one's history isn't that uncommon among Italian migrants to Australia. The unspoken rule is that emigration provided you with a clean biographical slate and that memories of one's life back in Italy were usually unreliable enough to warrant some poetic licence.
Indeed, my own Venetian father has told me repeatedly that he's a descendant of the great doge of Venice Marino Grimani. It's not something I'd ever take at face-value, and most migrants' kids have learnt to be cautious of claims made by their parents.
Identity for these people can be a complex issue, often linked to the trauma of a life of privation and extreme poverty. Yet the Casagrandes of Australia also have to realise that these grey areas of their background will always clash with the standards of contemporary society - particularly now that records are just a phone-call away.
James Panichi is a journalist with ABC Radio National in Melbourne.
First posted Fri Jun 11, 2010 2:02pm AEST
traduzioni italiane della verità
Di James Panichi
Aggiornato Ven 11 Giu, 2010 02:21 CEST
Le dimissioni del Queensland Autostrade di Luigi Casagrande questa settimana potrebbe essere una sorpresa ai suoi colleghi membri del consiglio. Ma chiunque abbia seguito la politica italiana in Australia negli ultimi anni sa che non c'è più a Il Corriere scoop Mail su titoli di studio Casagrande che soddisfa l'occhio.
La storia è prima di tutto quello che è incentrata su un feudo amaro in pre-selezione tra i tifosi con sede in Australia del primo ministro italiano Silvio Berlusconi.
La decisione di scegliere Casagrande, un costruttore di successo Queensland e imprenditore, come candidato del centro-destra per il nuovo, l'Australia a base di '' elettorato internazionale del Parlamento italiano ha scatenato uno catfight a tutto campo. Questo scontro ha portato alla fine ad una causa legale per diffamazione, che è stato risolto nel Nuovo Galles del Sud della Corte Suprema nel mese di aprile 2009.
Io oggetto della controversia per il programma ABC Radio National Background Briefing alla fine del 2008 e riportato alla luce le stesse prove, casting dubbi sui crediti accademici Casagrande.
Tuttavia, il tempo è andato all'aria, il mio programma ha rafforzato la sua attenzione su questioni più notizia, compresa la probabile candidatura dello sport australiano David Campese leggende e Frank Farina, e un accordo segreto dai membri ALP a Melbourne per il controllo della pre-selezione processo per il centro-sinistra.
Come risultato, sfondo Casagrande - e la sua risposta alle mie indagini - finirono sul pavimento del taglio-stanza. E 'stata una decisione ero felice di quel momento.
La mia ricerca indietro nel 2008, le questioni sollevate su richiesta Casagrande, sul sito di Autostrade Queensland che aveva una laurea in ingegneria presso l'Università di Padova - che è ciò che il dott suffisso. Ing. (Padova) implicita.
Di lavoro attraverso il giornalista Luca padovana Barbieri, un reporter investigativo per il Corriere del Veneto, sono riuscito a ottenere l'allora manager di archivi presso l'Università di Padova per cercare i suoi dischi, sia cartacea.
Il manager, con il nome di Donato Sigolo, mi ha inviato una e-mail e Luca conferma che, dopo una lunga ricerca che era stato in grado di trovare alcuna prova che il Venezia-nato Luigi Casagrande era mai stato uno studente.
Il giorno seguente ho contattato Casagrande e ha avuto un vivace scambio. Parlando in italiano, il signor Casagrande ha detto che aveva un grado di provare le sue affermazioni. "Ho capito, ho capito, l'ho andare," ha detto. "Cosa c'è di più, ho anche completato un MA quattro anni dopo".
Eppure, più avanti nella nostra conversazione apparve a marcia indietro la domanda, dicendo che se Padova non ha avuto il suo record di laurea è stato perché "Ho iniziato il grado di lì, ma ho finito [in Italia]".
Quando gli ho chiesto i Maestri, mi ha detto che l'ha completata "tra Padova e [l'Università di] Bologna". Tuttavia, egli mi disse che era riluttante a rilasciare la documentazione perché temeva il suo rivale politico in Australia, Giampiero Pallotta, avrebbe "un cattivo uso dell'informazione".
In quella fase, Casagrande è stato bloccato in una faida con danni Pallotta sulla scelta dei candidati.
Il Sydney-based Pallotta, che era il presidente australiano di quella che allora era di Berlusconi Forza Italia, aveva messo l'alto profilo, italiani-australiani Farina e Campese come candidati per le elezioni del 2006. Casagrande ha insistito che lui e Sydney imprenditrice Teresa Restifa essere i due candidati e ha incitato con successo coordinatore internazionale di Forza Italia a Milano.
La controversia in ultima analisi, è andato da nessuna parte. A dispetto di una vigorosa campagna nei dintorni di comunità italiane d'Australia, Casagrande perso sia il 2006 e il 2008 i sondaggi, con due candidati di Melbourne centro-sinistra, eletto al parlamento italiano.
Ora posso rivelare che quando Pallotta scoperto che ero stato in contatto con Padova, mi ha chiesto di fornirgli le e-mail da Sigolo di assisterlo in una causa per diffamazione intentata contro lui da Casagrande nel Nuovo Galles del Sud della Corte Suprema. Ho rifiutato.
Questa settimana, Pallotta mi rivelò che, dopo la sua conversazione con me si è messo in contatto con Padova ed è riuscita a ottenere le stesse informazioni da un altro dipendente University. E 'stato anche felice di ammettere che si nutriva le informazioni al giornalista Courier-Mail Tuck Thompson, che gestiva con la storia.
Ma forse ancora più importante per il futuro politico Casagrande, la controversia sulla sua laurea non sia un elemento particolarmente dannose per la sua posizione nella comunità italiana d'Australia.
Domande su Casagrande qualifiche sono state sollevate in testa dato al sondaggio del 2006, per ovvi motivi. Il conseguimento di una laurea da un'università italiana è un lungo, sgobbare duramente - in particolare uno in ingegneria. L'età della laurea è di solito 30 o più e non è possibile (almeno, ha usato essere) per passare attraverso il processo senza guadagnare una solida educazione.
Tuttavia, l'italiano parlato da Casagrande è quella di un autodidatta migranti, spesso alle prese con il tutto-importante congiuntivo e privo di sofisticazione. Italiano-australiani rapidamente messo insieme due più due e il riferimento a Casagrande come dott. Ing. sul sito web di Autostrade Queensland è diventato una barzelletta.
Quando le stesse qualifiche sono state accennato sul sito web del presidente d'Italia - da cui Casagrande aveva ricevuto il titolo impressionante di Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana - ancora qualche gioia crudele ne seguì. Tuttavia, nel 2008, l'Ambasciata Italiana a Canberra mi assicurò nessuna legge era stato rotto - si può dire al presidente che stai da Marte e nessuno si cura.
Tuttavia, abbellire la propria storia non è raro che tra i migranti italiani in Australia. La regola non detta è che l'emigrazione fornito con una tabula rasa biografico e che i ricordi della propria vita torna in Italia erano di solito inaffidabile abbastanza da giustificare qualche licenza poetica.
Infatti, mio padre mi ha detto veneziano ripetutamente che è un discendente del grande doge di Venezia Marino Grimani. Non è una cosa che avevo mai preso in valore nominale, e la maggior parte bambini migranti 'hanno imparato a essere prudente delle dichiarazioni fatte dai genitori.
Identità per queste persone può essere un problema complesso, spesso legato al trauma di una vita di privazioni e povertà estrema. Eppure il Casagrandes dell'Australia anche renderci conto che queste zone d'ombra della loro origine sarà sempre in conflitto con le norme della società contemporanea - soprattutto ora che i record sono solo una telefonata di distanza.
James Panichi è un giornalista con la ABC Radio National a Melbourne.
Primo inviato Ven 11 Giu, 2010 02:02 CEST
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