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How did $100,000 in NT mining royalties end up in Mal Brough's Queensland electorate?

By Chris Graham, Brian Johnstone & Amy McQuire

National Indigenous Times

12 July 2007: Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough took $100,000 from a government-controlled bank account that holds mining royalties on behalf of Northern Territory traditional owners and gave it to the organisers of a festival in his own Queensland electorate of Longman.

Brough then signed a letter which falsely claimed that the payment had been approved by an Aboriginal advisory committee.

But the pork-barrelling didn't stop there.

By the time The Dreaming - an Indigenous festival based in Woodford - was staged in June 2006, it had obtained further funding from Brough's department (Families and Communities and Indigenous Affairs - FaCSIA) of at least $280,000, through a public awareness program.

The financial windfall came despite the festival receiving barely any federal government assistance in 2005, before Brough served in the Indigenous affairs portfolio.

Readers should not draw any inference of any impropriety on the part of the organisers of The Dreaming.

The revelations of Brough's ministerial largesse are contained in a series of confidential documents leaked to the National Indigenous Times.

The $100,000 in funding was taken from the Aboriginal Benefits Account (ABA), a federal government-controlled account established in 1978 following the creation of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory).

Today, the ABA sits at more than $130 million. It holds mining royalty equivalency payments on behalf of traditional owners from the Northern Territory, with the cash derived from mining activity that occurs on Aboriginal land.

By law, ABA funds can only be spent for the benefit of Northern Territory Aboriginal people.

While the federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs has the final say over expenditure from the ABA, an advisory committee made up of representatives appointed by the Northern Territory land councils gives the minister advice on the approval or rejection of funding applications.

That committee meets several times a year to consider applications from Aboriginal groups across the Territory seeking financial support for projects ranging from small business ventures to large operations, such as multi-million dollar farming projects.

NIT has obtained confidential minutes of the March 14-15, 2006 meeting of the ABA advisory committee. The documents contain explosive revelations.

Among dozens of applications for funding, committee members were asked to consider a funding application entitled 'Dreaming Festival Project'.

Yet the application contained a host of errors, including incorrect information about who was actually seeking the funding.

Committee members were told the application was for funds to assist Aboriginal performers from "Galiwinku and Nhulunbuy" to attend the "Woodford Folk Music Festival".

In fact, the money - $186,000 in total - was being sought for The Dreaming festival, which is held on the same site as the world famous Woodford Folk Festival.

Minutes of the meeting acknowledge that the request for funding had been submitted as a "Late Application". NIT understands it arrived around 24 hours before the committee was due to meet.

The minutes then record the following discussion taking place among ABA advisory committee members: "A group of Galiwinku... performers and another group of performers from Nhulunbuy need $186,000 to attend the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland.

"To take members of Warumpi band, weavers, songpersons, speakers, dancers will cost $80,000 for airfares and accommodation.

"To take Yolngu people from Nhulunbuy to visit the same festival and provide yidaki workshops, weaving workshops and a stories and music program, airfares and accommodation will cost $106,000.

"It was noted that it is important for Indigenous people to share our culture."

But the committee resolved to delay any decision on funding, as the minutes record: "Action: Need to clarify applicant, beneficiaries, and party to which funds would be released. Further information is to be obtained by OIPC (the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination) and presented to the Committee."

What concerned the Committee was that it was unclear who had actually applied for the funding.

Regardless, that should have been the end of the matter - the advisory committee wasn't due to meet again until later in the year and The Dreaming was due to be staged in a matter of months. The funding application had simply been submitted too late, and with too little information.

But just a few weeks later - in late April 2006 - Brough wrote to the committee informing them he had approved $100,000 in funding to the festival and that he had notified the organisers their application was successful.

NIT has obtained a copy of that letter, which is signed by Brough.

In it, the Minister claims that the advisory committee supported the funding application for The Dreaming. Attached to Brough's letter is a list of ABA funding applications headed: "Schedule of funding proposals supported by ABA advisory committee at March 2006 meeting, and approved for funding."

The "Dreaming Festival Project" is the seventh project included in a list of eight.

When the ABA advisory committee met again in October 2006, NIT understands committee members were outraged that the festival had been funded without their support.

On Tuesday afternoon, Brough's office ignored repeated attempts by NIT to gain further information about the use of ABA funds.

However, a FaCSIA spokesperson issued the following statement to NIT: "In 2005 the Queensland Folk Federation Inc (QFF) held the inaugural "The Dreaming, Australia's International Indigenous Festival.

"Following the significant success of this first event, the QFF developed a long-term plan to further build The Dreaming as a national Indigenous event, with international participation.

"The QFF submitted an application to the Department for funding to support The Dreaming festival 2006, under the Public Information Program.

"This application was processed by the department in accordance with the usual Public Service procedures and was rigorously assessed against the PIP Guidelines.

"As a result, funding of $280,000 was provided to assist The Dreaming festival, alongside sponsorships and grants from the Queensland Government and the private sector.

"The QFF also applied for $187,000 (sic) in funding from the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA) to allow approximately 30 Aboriginal artists from Galiwinku and Nhulunbuy to attend.

"The application was tabled at a meeting of the ABA Advisory Committee held on 14 and 15 of March 2006.

"The committee "noted that it is important for Indigenous people to share our culture" and advised the Department to "clarify the applicant, beneficiaries, and the party to which funds would be released".

"The Department clarified these points and assessed the application against the usual criteria when considering ABA applications.

"The Department advised the Minister that the ABA Advisory Committee supported the QFF application and recommended that the Minister provide funding.

"The Minister, having considered the advice of the Department, approved a grant of $100,000 to the QFF from the Aboriginals Benefit Account."

NIT wrote to the organisers of The Dreaming seeking to clarify when they formally applied for funding from the ABA.

A spokesperson for The Dreaming confirmed that the application was lodged on April 3, 2006. That was three weeks after the ABA advisory committee met to consider applications.

At the time of press, NIT was unable to establish how the ABA advisory committee considered an application that had not yet been submitted.

NIT could also not establish who submitted the application that was considered and deferred by the ABA advisory committee, or why the application contained bizarre errors (such as The Dreaming purportedly getting its own name wrong in its application for funding).

Warren Snowdon is the ALP member for Lingiari, a federal seat which takes in most of the Northern Territory. He is also the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs.

In a written media statement issued in September last year, Mr Snowdon accused Brough of using the ABA as his own slush fund.

"There is increasing concern at the Minister's tendency to treat the ABA as a cash cow for his personal slush fund," Mr Snowdon said.

"The ABA has an Advisory Committee and it should be allowed to meet and do its job without the Minister pilfering the funds on a whim to disguise his own inability to source funds from existing Government programmes.

Mr Snowdon yesterday told NIT he remained concerned at the Howard government's use of ABA funds.

"I think there are real concerns about the role of the Minister in decision-making and there appears to be a total lack of transparency or accountability downwards to the people who are supposed to benefit from these funds.

"I'm concerned that there's been a manipulation of funds for use in areas that should be core government functions.

"I'm also concerned that the government is setting priorities based on politics, and that priorities are not being set or determined by Aboriginal people themselves."

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

NATIONAL, July 12, 2007: Other documents obtained by NIT reveal that the funding to The Dreaming festival didn't fit within Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough's own proposed funding rules for ABA expenditure.

In early April 2006, Brough wrote to the ABA committee advising them that he was tightening up the guidelines for the approval of funding application to ensure Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory got value out of their own money.

Under the funding category 'Ceremonial and funeral', Brough wrote: "In recognition of the importance of such activities to Aboriginal people, funding may be provided to contribute to the costs of ceremonial activities in connection with Aboriginal land and to meet funeral expenses. Applications will go to the committee before recommending to the Minister."

Yet just three weeks later, Brough signed off on $100,000 in funding to The Dreaming festival despite it having no connection to Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory.

The grant was listed in the ABA 2005-06 annual report as being spent under the 'ceremonial' category of the ABA funding guidelines.

To read Brough's letter to the ABA Advisory Committee, please see the related link.

http://www.nit.com.au/downloads/files/Download_137.pdf

Source: The National Indigenous Times

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