David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The wall of secrecy around Australia's cruel and corrupt offshore detention arrangements with Nauru must be torn down. Any system based on intentional and deliberate cruelty inevitably attracts corruption, and Australia's offshore detention regime is no exception. For over a decade, report after report has shown that refugees on Nauru have been subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. This has included hundreds of children. To allow this to happen, Labor and the coalition have led a process of moral disengagement from the pain and suffering of people who have been sent to Nauru, engaging in self-deception strategies that deny the reality of the abuse, always putting politics and three-word slogans over human decency and basic morality.

However, it turns out, when you choose that morally corrupt path, you inevitably choose a financially corrupt path too. This is where the money comes in. Canstruct is an Australian corporation that contracted with the Australian government for offshore detention in Nauru between 2012 and 2022. The largest of the Nauru contracts Canstruct had was for operating Nauru's detention facilities. According to AusTender, the contract ran from September 2017 to September 2022, during which time it expanded from an initial $8.2 million to over $1.8 billion. This contract was won without tender by a company that had no experience in detention facilities and was nominally an engineering company.

The cost to Australian taxpayers has been eye watering. According to official government figures, the cost to hold a single refugee in Nauru in 2021 was more $4.3 million a year. It should come as no surprise that Canstruct has been investigated for gross misuse of public money spent on insuring luxury vehicles, jewellery and investment properties. But this has already been made public, and I want to address something else tonight.

To deliver services on Nauru, Canstruct, like Broadspectrum before them, had a series of subcontracts with local companies, and every contract that exceeded $50,000 was actively approved by Home Affairs. One of their contracts was with the neatly named 1402 LRC Car Rentals and Constructions—remember that name, because AUSTRAC, Australia's leading government financial intelligence agency, has had them and a whole bunch of senior politicians in Nauru in their sights. An until-now secret information report by AUSTRAC that was produced sometime before September 2022 details a series of suspicious transactions involving the then president and now speaker of the Parliament of Nauru, Lionel Aingimea; his wife, Ingrid Aingimea; and the then MP now president, David Adeang. Here's what it says, and what I say are direct quotes taken from the secret AUSTRAC briefing:

OFFICIAL: Sensitive

Information Report

President of Nauru, Lionel Rouwen AINGIMEA, and associates' suspicious financial activity

…   …   …

Information summary

Suspicious matter reports (SMRs) submitted by the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited's customer service agency in Nauru, reported suspicious financial transactions by the President of Nauru, his family and associates. These transactions involve the movement of funds between personal and business accounts, transactions on behalf of others and activity indicative of money laundering and corruption. These suspicious transactions occurred over a 9 month period from January to September 2020 in Nauru, totalling over $2 million in combined credits and over $1 million dollars in combined debits.

President of Nauru, Lionel Rouwen AINGIMEA … First Lady Ingrid Jacinta INGIMEA … brother of the President David AINGIMEA … and Member of Parliament David ADEANG … are linked to the reported suspicious activity.

…   …   …

Background

This Information Report relates to three suspicious matter reports (SMRs) submitted by the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited (Bendigo Bank) customer service agency in Nauru. Currently there is no AML/CTF legislation in Nauru requiring a financial institution physically located in Nauru to report suspicious matters to the Nauru financial intelligence unit (FIU). As a result, Bendigo Bank reports to AUSTRAC. AUSTRAC is under no obligation to share these reports with the Nauru FIU but has responded positively to specific requests in the past. The SMRs mentioned in this Information Report have not been shared by with the Nauru FIU.

The financial activity reported in these SMRs identifies suspicious transactional activity from Nauru accounts by Nauruan politically exposed persons (PEP), including of the President, his family and his associates.

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SMR 1280982006 submitted on 7 September 2020, relates to rapid movement of large volume and value of funds by David ADEANG … forming a suspicion of corruption and money laundering. ADEANG has received funds from '1402 LRC Car Rentals and Construction', the company associated with the President's wife, I AINGIMEA.

ADEANG is member of the national legislature of Nauru and is the son of another politically exposed person, Kennan Ranibok ADEANG. He hold a transaction account and is also listed an additional cardholder for business account 'Global Procurement Incorporated' in Bendigo Bank.

World check database shows ADEANG has held multiple positions in Narau government since 2004. He was investigated in 2015 by Australian Federal Police (AFP) for alleged bribery in relation to phosphate mining in Nauru.

Bendigo Bank's review of ADEANG'S account from January to September 2020 details the following transactions …

I won't name some, but I'll pick out some highlights: 15 Osko payments, three of those from '1402 LRC Car Rentals and Construction', linked to I Aingimea, totalling $113,797; 462 transactions associated with building and construction reference of payment, totalling $248,886; 140 ATM withdrawals, totalling $68,840; and one branch withdrawal of $700.

The report says:

SMR 1285310345 submitted on 16 September 2020, relates to suspicious account activity recorded against personal and business accounts held by Nauru's President Lionel Rouwen AINGIMEA … and first lady, Ingrid Jacinta AINGIMEA … over the period of nine months, from the beginning of 2020. …

I AINGIMEA is recorded with regular credits from the Government of Nauru into both her personal and business accounts. These government payments are subsequently on-transferred to third parties, with beneficiaries including her husband L AINGIMEA. …

For her business account in the name of '1402 LRC Car Rentals and Construction', I AIGIMEA has received a total of $580,277 from the Nauru Government and has transferred $425,200 of this to her husband L AINGIMEA. These payments are described as "fee" or "legal fee". This business account is also held with Cherrilyn SILK … a Nauruan national. …

In total and including her personal and business bank accounts for the first nine months of 2020, I AINGIMEA has received over $830,000 from the Nauruan Government with $462,500 being transferred to her husband President L AINGIMEA and over $144,000 withdrawn in cash. …

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Dissemination list

Until now, this secret information report by AUSTRAC that was produced sometime before September 2022 has been secret. What it shows is that a bunch of this money was likely sourced from Canstruct. Still more came from the Nauru government, a government that Australia has had multibillion-dollar dealings with, stretching over a decade. Australia knew about all these corrupt payments, including to now president Adeang, when the Albanese Labor government entered into a fresh $2½ billion secret deal with his government this year. They are still hiding the MOU that underpins that agreement, hiding the payments that they are making and refusing to say where the Australian taxpayers' money is going.

Is it any wonder they have cut a secret $2.5 billion deal with a government that is not just rumoured to be corrupt; it's a government that they know and knew to be corrupt? Remember that Home Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade were copied into that AUSTRAC report two years before they negotiated the latest multibillion-dollar deal with Nauru and its government. Let me put this clearly. The Australian government has at all times known that the current Nauruan president and key members of his government are seriously corrupt, and they still signed a $2½ billion deal with him. There is a reason that this is all happening like this. Corruption follows cruelty, and it breeds in secrecy. And that's the Nauru deal and offshore detention all over. We must stop the rorts, stop the cruelty, stop the corruption and end this toxic deal.

The Tamil national heroes remembrance day is one of the most significant events in the Tamil calendar. It's a day of profound remembrance for those who gave their lives in the struggle for dignity, justice and human rights. The fact that Tamils everywhere pause at precisely 5.45 pm to remember together is a powerful expression of unity. My thoughts and those of the Australian Greens are with the Tamil community across Australia and around the world who are marking this solemn occasion together. I say these words now in the Australian Senate, ensuring that this Tamil day of remembrance is acknowledged in our nation's parliament: to the New South Wales and Australian Tamil community who have gathered together today, we acknowledge the sacrifice. We will speak honestly about the past and commit to work together in peace and solidarity.