Turnbull, the #Reefgate rort and Rupert

 David Donovan 9 August 2018, 8:00am  72

 PoliticsBusinessEnvironmentCrimeMining

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The Reef looks to be totally rorted (Meme via @CFMEU)

The Reefgate rort may be the biggest scandal in Australian political history — but is just the latest in a long line of taxpayer cash splashes from Turnbull to his cronies, including the Murdochs.

MALCOLM TURNBULL giving almost half-a-billion dollars of public money to his business cronies is, perhaps, the biggest rort in Australian political history.

But the fact this so-called #Reefgate scandal has scarcely made a ripple in Australia’s mainstream media says everything you need to know about where this nation is in 2018.

Let’s look back over the facts.

THE REEFGATE RORT EXPLAINED

In a private meeting on 9 April this year, Prime Minister Turnbull met with an old business acquaintance. There was no public servant at this meeting, just one other cabinet minister.

The Prime Minister told his old mate that the small charity he chaired, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF), was to be given almost half-a-billion dollars of public money. The GBRF chair was surprised. He had never tendered for the money. Had never even asked for it. Indeed, he had no immediate way to spend the money, the charity having only six full-time employees. But he accepted it nonetheless.

When the Foundation chair told his managing director about the meeting, she said it was “like we had just won the Lotto!”

Dr Alana Grech@AlanaMGrech

‘Like winning lotto’: Reef Foundation minnow braces for $444m windfall https://www.theage.com.au/environment/conservation/like-winning-lotto-reef-foundation-minnow-braces-for-444m-windfall-20180511-p4zeud.html … via @theage

1:31 PM – May 13, 2018

‘Like winning lotto’: Reef Foundation minnow braces for $444m windfall

The Turnbull government has made the centrepiece of its $500m Great Barrier Reef rescue package a non-profit group whose revenue was less than $8m in 2017.

theage.com.au

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The managing director was understating the magnitude of the prize, however. No lottery in Australia’s history had ever given out even a quarter of that amount, let alone to someone who hadn’t entered and didn’t have a ticket.

Last week, an application document eventually emerged. It was only half filled out, with key details missing.

Yesterday, 8 August 2018, news emerged that the Government had broken its own rules by not putting the grant through a competitive tendering process and also that the auditor general was considering investigating the scandal. It is hard to imagine a bigger schemozzle.

But here’s where it gets truly concerning.

In what could be construed as a calculated insult to environmentalists, the scientific community and everyone who actually cares about the future of the Great Barrier Reef, the Foundation’s “partners”make up a veritable “Who’s Who” of big business and the mining industry, including Qantas, Boeing, Rio Tinto, BHP, Peabody Energy, Shell, Downer EDI Mining, Worley Parsons, Wesfarmers and Aurizon — the very ones, arguably, responsible for the Reef becoming bleached in the first place.

And the chair of the Foundation? The one who was in that 9 April meeting with Turnbull, and Energy and Environment Minister Frydenberg? That was former BHP director and Esso Australia CEO John Schubert. Esso is the Australian subsidiary of ExxonMobil — not only the world’s biggest oil company, but also the world’s biggest funder of climate change denial. They also sank the Exxon Valdez oil tanker off Alaska, causing one of the most devastating environmental disasters in human history — so they do have some experience dealing with damaged coastlines.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/turnbull-reefgate-and-rupert,11772