Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

Two weeks ago, Pippa Middleton, the sister of the potential future Queen of England, visited the Northern Territory, and it got a bit of publicity. You might have seen it on the TV. I am going out on a limb here, but I think it is a fair bet that that trip will probably deliver more economic development to the North than this government's Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility has in the last two years. That is because they have not done anything. They have not delivered any money to any projects in two years. Two years ago they announced the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility: $5 billion that they said they would use to fund job-generating, nation-building infrastructure in northern Australia. There was a lot of fanfare. The former Treasurer Joe Hockey said this was 'the first major step in our plan for our great North'. The Minister for Northern Australia said, 'The time for talk is over, and the time for action is here.' Since then, nothing has happened. No money has been allocated. They have spent over 600 grand on salaries and expenses for board members, but they have not delivered a zack for any project that is creating jobs in northern Australia. All we know is that, over the last two years, they have had 119 inquiries for funding and they are apparently considering 60 active deals, but there are only four projects that are currently subject to due diligence, and nothing has been funded. In two years nothing has been allocated.

More worrying, though, is what we found out in estimates only two weeks ago—in particular, what we found out about one board member, a Karla Way-McPhail. We found out that Ms Way-McPhail is a personal friend of the minister, that the minister put her forward for appointment to the board and that Ms Way-McPhail regularly attends LNP fundraisers and is a donor to the LNP. We also learned that Ms Way-McPhail is the CEO of two mining services companies that could benefit from potential NAIF funding. One is Undamine Industries, which hires out labour and machinery to mining operations, and the other is Coal Train Australia, a mining training company based in Central Queensland. She is also the director of a boat company that could benefit from potential NAIF funding for tourism development on Great Keppel Island.

The point I am making here is that there is a clear potential conflict of interest on that board. In a story in The Guardian last month, Ms Way-McPhail refused to say whether she had participated in board discussions where she has a conflict of interest. In the same story, a spokesperson for the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia said that NAIF's conflict of interest policies require board members to 'declare their interests and recuse themselves from discussions if there is a conflict of interest'. So we asked in estimates whether Ms Way-McPhail has done this: (1) whether she has declared conflicts of interest; and (2) if she has conflicts of interest that she has declared, whether she has recused herself from discussions where a potential conflict of interest may arise. That is when the shutters came down. The minister and the CEO of NAIF refused to answer any of our questions, on the basis of public interest immunity. That is not good enough. This is $5 billion of taxpayers' money. We have a right to ask whether proper governance is being applied in this board to make sure that the money is allocated to the proper places.

Apart from that, Australians have a right to know what is going on inside the NAIF. We know at least one person on the NAIF board is a political mate, we know she has a clear potential conflict of interest because of the companies she runs that could benefit from NAIF funding, we know the NAIF board has considered projects where conflicts of interest could arise, and this government refuses to say whether she was in the room for discussions about these projects or whether she recused herself. It is not good governance; it is a cover-up. It is why we have asked the Australian National Audit Office to investigate NAIF. It is why we have put forward a motion in the Senate today to refer NAIF to the Senate Economics References Committee for investigation.

When the Deputy Prime Minister was asked about this a couple of weeks ago, he said, 'If there's a claim that there's a conflict of interest, we'll check it out.' Minister, where is the investigation up to? Has it started? Has it concluded? Will you answer the question that the minister refused to answer in estimates: has Ms Way-McPhail recused herself or not from all discussions on the NAIF board, where she has a conflict of interest? (Time expired)

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