The Australian
Greens will push for a parliamentary inquiry into how $444m in reef funding was
awarded to a small not-for-profit foundation with little scrutiny and without a
competitive tender process.
Greens
senator Peter Whish-Wilson, the party’s spokesman for healthy oceans, will move
for a Senate inquiry into why the Great Barrier Reef Foundation was announced
as the recipient of the record government grant without the funds being offered
to existing government reef agencies.
The inquiry,
if supported by Labor and the crossbench, would also investigate the capacity
of the foundation to meet the objectives of the government’s Reef 2050 plan,
the proficiency of other organisations that could carry out similar work, and
the foundation’s governance – including the management of commercial and
potential conflicts of interest.“So many questions remain unanswered into how
this small foundation …has been granted hundreds of millions in public funding
and why the government bypassed the specially designed public bodies that are
already doing this work,” Whish-Wilson said.
“[The Greens]
also have enormous concerns about whether this organisation has anything close
to the levels of expertise or governance to effectively distribute this
funding.
“No amount of
natural resource management or science funding has ever been subjected to so
little scrutiny as to where the money ends up.”Labor’s environment spokesman,
Tony Burke, said the opposition would talk to the Greens about the proposed
inquiry.
The
foundation has come under scrutiny since the government announced it would
receive the record grant prior to the federal budget in May.
In Senate
estimates hearings last week, Environment and Energy Department officials
revealed there had been no tender process before the grant was awarded and the
foundation itself was only made aware of the grant a few weeks before it was
announced.
The
foundation, which has just six full-time employees, has previously made clear
it does not know why it was chosen for the funding and described it as like
“winning the lotto”.
In statements
provided to Guardian Australia last week it said it was focused on projects
with large scale impact “that go to the heart of saving the Great Barrier Reef
and that can also benefit coral reefs globally”.
The
foundation has said it did not apply for the funding and was contacted by the
Australian government before the initial announcement of the funding commitment
that took place in Cairns on 29 April.
“The
foundation is in the unique position of working across the entire science
community and all levels of government, with leading scientists from different
institutions, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority – the reef
managers,” a spokeswoman said.
“We work with
everyone in the reef community to find the gaps, to find the points of
innovation, and to find the areas of greatest impact.”
The
foundation is backed by business and its chairman’s panel includes executives
from Qantas, Downer Group, AGL and Peabody Energy.
Department
officials told estimates hearings that the foundation’s business focus was seen
as an advantage because it had the ability to leverage additional funding from
private sources.
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