Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise due to continued public questioning about a personal philanthropic trust, named the Mid-North Coast Youth Trust, which was established in 2003 as an act of personal giving to young people on the Mid-North Coast, primarily set up to disburse post-parliamentary entitlements when they become available. The trust was established with $5,000 of my personal salary, thereby establishing me as settlor to the trust. A further $200 is the only other contribution to the trust. Not one cent of public funding has been involved in any aspect of this trust.

The recent public questioning about this trust has sent me and others into files of 10 years ago and it has therefore taken time to reconcile as many aspects of the trust as possible. In auditing the past decade of the trust, we have come across several reporting errors that are now in the process of being corrected. As an example, I have been reporting on my register of parliamentary interests that I am a trustee of the Mid-North Coast Youth Trust, when the correct reporting would have me as the settlor of the Mid-North Coast Youth Trust, with the trust established with $5,000 of my personal salary as the initial and only significant contribution. All issues in regard to this trust are being reconciled and where any gaps in reconciliations, reporting or processes emerge, it is my further personal commitment to make sure it is at my personal expense that the trust is able to resolve them if necessary.

This trust is fundamentally an act of giving, not taking. In light of the recent political campaign against this trust, sadly I cannot guarantee the future of the trust, with trustees expected to meet shortly to consider this issue.

Regardless of decisions made by trustees in regard to the future of it, I stand by the intent of the trust when first established in 2003—that is, to make a substantial personal commitment to young people on the Mid-North Coast when post-parliamentary entitlements become available.