Crossbench MPs will give the government 15 sitting days to stand in the way of their move to cancel an $18 million grant awarded to a charity after the Governor-General privately lobbied Scott Morrison on its behalf.
How the recently formed Australian Future Leaders Foundation was given this grant, its charitable purpose and the relationship between its directors and Governor-General David Hurley are facts a public integrity expert says must be established before public money is handed over.
Independent MP Monique Ryan has given Parliament notice that she intends to block the transfer of the money to the foundation, which will cause it to be cancelled within 15 sitting days if the government does not act to stop that process.
Prominent crossbenchers, including David Pocock, Zoe Daniel, Zali Steggall, Jacqui Lambie, Tammy Tyrrell and Andrew Wilkie told TND they were backing the move, or a similar upper house motion.
The Greens support it too, and more MPs are expected to declare their hands in coming days.
Dr Ryan said there was not enough evidence to show why the grant was awarded as she effectively dared the government to intervene to support one of the Morrison government’s most contested decisions.
‘‘It’s up to the government whether it wishes to bring the Morrison government’s mysterious million-dollar funding allocation to an unsubstantiated body to an examination in the House or Senate, and then a vote, or to be disallowed,’’ she told The New Daily.
The government has not indicated whether it would back the extraordinary disallowance measure.
On Tuesday night Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong told the upper house the spending measure was “under review’’. But questions about how any review was different to the usual budget process went unanswered after being referred to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Tweet from @Mon4Kooyong
‘Opaque and secret’
Integrity expert Geoffrey Watson SC said the money should be retracted because so little was known about how it would be spent but also the meeting between Mr Morrison and the GG that preceded its approval.
“This was, again, one of these opaque and secret procedures,” said Mr Watson, who represented the NSW ICAC in many famous public corruption inquiries and is a former Police Integrity Commissioner.
‘‘The circumstances in which the agreement was struck, which seems to have been a private discussion between the Prime Minister and the Governor-General just doesn’t sound right.
“The grant should be set aside and properly investigated […so] that they get to the bottom of what went on here.”
Mr Hurley personally lobbied then Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the foundation before it was handed $18 million in funding, reportedly after a PowerPoint presentation.
It came under intense scrutiny during former Mr Morrison’s final month in office, when the awarding of public money to a charity lacking an office space, website, staff or phone number met with public question.
Inconsistencies have also emerged regarding the relationship between the charity’s operator, Chris Hartley, a Singaporean-born British businessman, and the Governor-General.
The GG previously said he only met Mr Hartley when the charity was being established in July 2020.
But as Ronni Salt has revealed the pair met several times before, including a 2017 event for another charity run by Mr Hartley: The Gurkha Australia Welfare Fund.
Authorities stripped that charity of its tax-deductible status last year because it did not meet disclosure requirements.
“The fact that you’re deregistered as a charity is pretty stunning rebuke,” Mr Watson said.
Unknown entity
The charity’s two other directors, Julie and Andrew Overton, have previously advocated for the construction of a skate park in the Sydney suburb of Greystanes.
When reached for comment on Tuesday night Mr Overton, a consultant to government organisations, declined to say how he had become involved in the foundation and referred questions to his fellow director.
Asked if he had a contact number, Mr Overton hung up after replying: “No, I don’t, thank you”.
Mr Hartley did not return a voicemail message about the circumstances of his previous charity’s removal from the public register.
“We don’t know how close the relationship was between [the Governor-General] and Mr Hartley; it is conflicting information in respect of that,” Mr Watson said.
“We don’t know what is actually proposed to be done with the money or how it’s going to be allocated. We don’t know, for example, about the executive set up for the charity, which is receiving the money,’’ he said.
“We do not know how much would be payable in salaries to Mr Hartley or any of the other executives. Maybe they’re doing a pro bono, but we don’t even know that.”
A previous statement from foundation said it would seek to bring together a ‘‘group of nationally-minded multisector leaders’’ to form a leadership network of 120 people.
There was no accompanying publication of the mission statement or criteria the foundation would use to select people for selection into the network, or what guidelines would prohibit political or religious favouritism.
The Official Secretary to the Governor-General, Paul Singer, declined The New Daily’s request for an interview when contacted via phone on Tuesday. The office did not answer written questions.
A similar disallowance motion to that backed by Dr Ryan has been lodged by the Greens and Jacqui Lambie Network in the Senate.
A spokeswoman for independent MP Zali Steggall told The New Daily that she would support the disallowance and was concerned about the awarding of the grant without a tender process.
Indi MP Helen Haines and Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie were reserving their decisions late on Tuesday.
