Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

Canstruct International is an obscure Brisbane-based company which was handed a $1.4 billion contract to provide welfare and garrison services on Nauru in October 2017. The company is owned by the Murphy family—three brothers and their father is. On Monday, papers revealed that, since October 2017, executives and associates of Canstruct have made 11 donations to the Liberal National Party. I would like to put the timing of these donations on the public record.

On 10 October 2017, one day after negotiations on the $1.4 billion contract began, the CEO of Canstruct, Rory Murphy, donated $3,500 to the Liberal National Party. On 21 November 2017, a company called Mag Modular Pty Ltd, which is owned by the Murphy family, donated to the Liberal National Party. That donation was made approximately three weeks after Canstruct's contract was extended. On 19 November 2018, Mag Modular Pty Ltd made another donation to the Liberal National Party. That donation was made several weeks after Canstruct's contract with the government was extended again. On 2 and 3 May 2019, the chief operating officer of Canstruct and his own private company made four donations, totalling $20,000, to the Liberal National Party. On 17 October 2019, the chief financial officer of Canstruct donated to the Liberal National Party. That was about one month before the contract was extended again, for a further six months. On 17 March 2020, another related entity of Canstruct International made two separate donations, totalling $10,000. Those donations were made in the months before negotiations between Canstruct and the government commenced in relation to yet another extension to the contract. On 9 July 2020, a week after the contract was extended for another six months, the same related entity of Canstruct made a further donation to the LNP.

I have referred to 11 separate donations to the LNP over the life of this $1.4 billion contract, and those are just the donations that we know about. It is already a matter of public record that the government offered Canstruct this $1.4 billion contract without a competitive tender, despite multiple other companies expressing an interest in providing the services and despite a representative of the Nauruan government telling the Australian government that its decision to pursue a sole tender arrangement with Canstruct International 'deeply offended us and, in our view, has damaged the sense of partnership and collaboration between Nauru and Australia'.

As revealed in Senate estimates this week by my colleague Senator Keneally, the contract was offered to Canstruct despite it having no assets and generating no revenue at the relevant time. The amount of private profit that this family of Liberal National Party donors has made from public funds is scarcely believable. According to the company's own financial reports, Canstruct International made almost $52 million in profit from the Nauru contract in 2017-18. In 2018-19, it made a $91.5 million profit. In 2019-20, its profit was $130 million.

Since October 2017, the value of the contract has continued to increase significantly, despite the dramatic decline in the number of asylum seekers on Nauru—from 1,094 to fewer than 150—and despite the government of Nauru taking over the provision of welfare services in 2019. In December 2017, the company received approximately $27.3 million to provide welfare and garrison services to 1,084 people. In January 2021, it received over $40 million to provide fewer services to only 145 people. In other words, this family of Liberal National Party donors is receiving millions of dollars more to do less work for fewer people. This stinks! It looks like yet another example of the Liberal National Party using public money like it is Liberal Party money and helping out their mates. It is no wonder that the Morrison government has no interest in establishing a national anticorruption commission.

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