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

I rise to speak about the theft of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money. Linda Burney, Bill Shorten and Ken Wyatt have all been completely aware of this matter for at least two years. I refer to an investigation by the Department of Social Services into corruption by former directors of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation, or NATSIC. This investigation has been underway for more than two years, with no outcome. Three investigators, all of them former Australian Federal Police officers with years of experience, have been sacked, suspended or removed from the matter just as they were ready to recommend legal action.

The subjects of this investigation, Jim Golden-Brown, Graham Aitken and Harry Harun, have been permitted to take over another organisation which receives taxpayer funding, Aboriginal Community Services, in Adelaide. Using taxpayer funding provided to NATSIC and intended to help Indigenous Australians living with disability, Jim Golden-Brown bought enough alcohol to stock a dozen Dan Murphys, funded his own double-knee replacement surgery, took his wife, Kate Whiteley, on a $28,000 luxury holiday to Hawaii and treated himself to other trips, such as to Fiji, flying business class and staying in five-star hotels. There are reams of credit card transaction records showing the truth of this corruption. When he was confronted with this wrongdoing, he used the same grant money to start legal action against accusers and personally issued threats to the lives and safety of his accusers and their families.

In 2010, when his name was James Sturgeon, a not-for-profit company started by Jim Golden-Brown in New South Wales had its accounts frozen and he was convicted in absentia of operating a real estate agency without a licence. In the same year, Mr Golden-Brown was sacked as CEO of the former Malabam Health Board Aboriginal Corporation after investigations raised concerns of his misuse of funds. In 2013, Mr Golden-Brown left his position as chief executive of the Barengi Gadjin Land Council in Horsham, Victoria, just as a probe was launched into the organisation. This probe found financial and other irregularities, including suspicion he had misused an $800,000 grant.

Despite this very disturbing pattern, Mr Golden-Brown managed to get himself appointed as CEO of NATSIC in 2016. Mr Golden-Brown treated NATSIC as his own personal expense account. Graham Aitken and Harry Harun, as treasurer and chairman, facilitated this by signing off on his expenditure. These two were in Parliament House this very week, still permitted to have a government advisory role in aged care. The funding originally came from the NDIS, which is what led to Bill Shorten's office being contacted to do something about it. He's been aware of it for two years. So much for his pledge to crackdown on NDIS fraud! Linda Burney was also contacted at the same time with the same information, as was Ken Wyatt, the Minister for Indigenous Australians at the time. The funding is now under the purview of the Department for Social Services, which cancelled the funding because the project had not been delivered. That was when Golden-Brown, Aitken and Harun were removed from NATSIC. Now these same men are permitted to be in charge of the ACS organisation, where annual expenses have risen $4 million in a single year and where audits by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission have revealed it was not compliant in six out of seven quality standards. The investigation by DSS is going nowhere.

Why are these people being protected? You would hope it's not because Labor is trying to keep Indigenous grant corruption under wraps before the Voice referendum. I acknowledge the work of the Australian Financial Review in reporting this matter. I am making an appeal to all Australian media. I implore them to expose corruption in the use of public funds, ensure government accountability and, ultimately, help taxpayer assistance to get to the people who really need it. Apart from these whistleblowers and the information I have seen, I have had other people contact me this week who are directors on Aboriginal boards who are also saying there is corruption that's happening there. Why is Linda Burney so concerned about Golden-Brown? She raised the name before I mentioned it for the first time in this chamber, wanting to know who is giving me this information. Linda Burney has a lot to answer for to this parliament and to the people of Australia. Do your job properly.