Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

HANSON (—) (): I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry and report by 3 October 2023:

The activities of Aboriginal Community Services (ACS), with particular reference to:

(a) whether there was fraudulent usage of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation (NATSIC) vehicles and fraudulent usage of NATSIC fuel cards and credit cards by current and former staff members and directors of ACS;

(b) whether any former NATSIC members and/or employees were in receipt of payments from ACS as contractors or employees;

(c) whether any of these former NATSIC members and/or employees were receiving WorkCover or other workers' compensation/insurance payments while being paid/employed by ACS;

(d) whether third party related member benefits were appropriately approved by membership and reconciled against grant agreements (approved, expended and reconciled in accordance with grant agreement requirements);

(e) whether employment of family members was appropriately approved by the membership and in accordance with conflict of interest requirements;

(f) whether taxation was avoided through the use of third party related member benefits, or income in the form of payments, incidental costs, including credit cards, and fringe benefits arrangements for staff and directors, and what property has been purchased as a result (for example, housing, vehicles, jewellery etc, subject to Proceeds of Crime legislation);

(g) whether unlawfully obtained income or benefits were used in the setup of trust accounts related to ACS or by any staff or directors of ACS;

(h) whether investigations, whether related to fraud or otherwise, have been undertaken by the relevant Commonwealth and state departments into the operation of ACS and current and former staff and directors of ACS, including their involvement in suspected fraud relating to other organisations and boards such as the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Executive Board and NATSIC;

(i) any third party payments, including any payments made to consultancy firms, including James S Sturgeon Consultancy (ABN 55 592 208 638), Altitude Strategies Pty Ltd, NFP Success and other related entities;

(j) whether there are any financial conflicts in the provision of auditing services to ACS;

(k) whether the ACS board has complied with legislative governance requirements in regard to financial approvals, processes, reporting and transparency, including membership transparency requirements, for example, notifications to members for annual general meetings and whether ACS has met all requirements for legitimate annual general meetings;

(l) whether any current or former ACS staff and directors were unable to obtain appropriate working with vulnerable people and working with children's tickets in any jurisdiction across Australia;

(m) whether any current or former ACS board members have been paid in any form by ACS, including through income or by receiving benefits; and

(n) any other related matters.

I rise to speak to this important motion on the activities of the Aboriginal Community Services. It goes to the heart of government accountability—something which the Prime Minister promised would improve under his leadership. As with many of his other promises, this one has not been met. The Albanese government's record on accountability is just about the worst I've ever seen in my 27 years in politics. For some time now, the Prime Minister has been lecturing Australians that special laws and programs and billions of taxpayer dollars haven't closed the gap, and that's his justification for the racist Voice to Parliament. Senator Nampijinpa Price's proposed inquiry into Aboriginal land councils will help explain this failure. I commend the senator for her many years of effort on behalf of Indigenous communities and for her pursuit of accountability for this failure.

Over the years, I've had many Indigenous Australians contact my office or tell me in person about the corruption of this industry. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are sick and tired of the corruption standing in the way of much-needed assistance and support. They're sick and tired of the protection racket shielding corrupt individuals from justice, and it must stop. For some time now, my office has been working with ethical Indigenous community leaders to expose corruption in the use of Indigenous grant funding. The corruption itself is not especially surprising, and I'm confident we've barely scratched the surface of it so far. Of much greater concern is that it has been under investigation by more than one government department for years. Even more appallingly, the subjects of the investigation have been permitted to remain in positions from which they control millions of dollars of taxpayer funding. I refer to Aboriginal Community Services, or the ACS, based in South Australia.

Evidence of the corruption with Indigenous funding continues to emerge as the government campaigns hard to enshrine this corruption in the Constitution. Last month, we learned about the allegations involving the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, which has been funded by the Attorney-General's Department with $83 million. Already the Attorney-General is dodging responsibility for this funding, pretending that he has no control over how it's spent. What a pathetic excuse! I'm telling you now: Australians have had enough of it. They want accountability, and they want to know where their taxpayer dollars are going.

No taxpayer funding should be given to anyone without strict accountability and transparency measures in place. However, that's what appears to happen with the billions of dollars going out in Indigenous grant funding. The Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act has nothing like the strict accountability provisions required of non-Indigenous corporations. The Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, or ORIC, writes to Indigenous grant recipients to politely point out their noncompliance, and the recipients keep getting more grants.

If you want to understand the failure to close the gaps, we need to examine the activities of the many thousands of land councils, Indigenous corporations and charities charged with delivering assistance funded by taxpayers. They are the ones who are responsible for the design and delivery of the programs supposed to address Indigenous disadvantage. We must also examine why successive Australian governments have allowed this failure to go unchecked for so long and why the investigation of which I have been made aware has been so unreasonably delayed. There can only be one reason: the government is trying to hide the truth of this corruption to preserve the dwindling 'yes' vote for the coming referendum.

A voice to parliament will not solve these issues; it will entrench them. A voice to parliament is not a different approach; it's just more of the same failure enshrined in the Constitution so it can continue for all time. More importantly, this is not the government's money or the land councils' money. It's our money—more than $11.5 billion in grants over the past five years alone. Australians have every right to know exactly who is getting it, what it's being used for and why it's not working the way it should. There is immense goodwill amongst Australians to help those in genuine need, but that will evaporate unless they can be confident that their support is really making a difference instead of being squandered.

I have brought this to the attention of the parliament today—my notice of motion has even got the attention of the Department of Social Services and the minister's office, who didn't want me to put this forward, who's actually been contacting the crossbench not to support this, not to support accountability, because this is under investigation. So I said, 'Well, how long has it been under investigation?' It's been under investigation since 2021—two years. And then they also brought in a special audit, which has been in the place for the last six months. 'Oh, we can't do anything.' 'Okay. Have you got a timeline for when you will find out what charges are going to be laid, because corruption has happened there?' 'Oh, we don't know that. We've got to find where the money is coming from, because it's not only the pot of Department of Social Services money. It's coming from state governments as well, so we've got to ensure that this money is from DSS.'

If this happened in the private sector, they would have moved immediately. But it has been two years, a special auditor has been brought in and still there is nothing? That stinks to high heaven to me, because you're not being accountable to the people of this nation. This corruption has been going on for years and years, and I spoke about it many years ago, and nothing has happened. I don't care who's in government here, whether it's the Liberals, Labor, the Nationals or whoever. You all seem to turn a blind eye to it. You sit there and you say: 'We need a voice to parliament because it will actually close the gaps. It will help what's happening.' You don't need that. You need to actually find out where money is going, not have another advisory body—or so you call it. You say it's an advisory body; I say it's setting up a sovereignty structure so that they will actually ask whatever they want and start taxing the Australian people even more so. That's what it's about, and that's quite evident in the papers that were written, even by the people who have written the Uluru Statement from the Heart. These people have said exactly what they want from the Australian people, and it's a deceit that you're putting before the Australian people when you say you reckon it's only about a voice.

You have that voice. You've got 11 people in this chamber, and the biggest risk you have here is Senator Price, who is there fighting more so for the Australian people than I am seeing from any other representative who calls themselves Aboriginal in this place. I have seen more out of her in the short time she's been in this parliament than any other who calls themselves Aboriginal in this place.

The whole fact is that it's about accountability. I have never heard anyone else in this place that claims to be of Aboriginal descent ask for accountability. Where has the money gone?