An expanded version of my Crikey post of 29 June 2009…

Centrecorp is, as the Federal Government’s own Office of Evaluation and Audit (Indigenous Programs) noted in a Report of November 2008, a:

…very successful private organisation which has received approximately $25.1m in support from the Australian Government. As noted in its various establishment documents, Centrecorp has taken “advantage of investment and commercial opportunities” for the benefit of Aboriginal people in Central Australia and have built an impressive asset base over the past 23 years.

The Office of Evaluation and Audit (Indigenous Programs) provides the Commonwealth government with:

…objective advice to the Australian Government about the management and performance of its programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We make recommendations about how Indigenous-specific programs can be improved, and how the Australian Government can deliver better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Originally part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), OEA was established administratively within the Department of Finance and Deregulation in July 2004 and confirmed in legislation by section 193W of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005.

Centrecorp was established in 1985 to, according to its Memorandum of Association:

“… undertake and implement activities which further the economic and social development of Aboriginals and which are conducive to the advancement of Aboriginals.”

Three of the five $1 shares in of Centrecorp are owned by the Central Land Council. Centrecorp operates two charitable trusts of which it is a trustee and through a combination of good management, fortune and circumstance Centrecorp has grown to be one of the largest investors in central Australia, with interests in a car dealership, a shopping centre, a real estate agency, supermarkets, a gas pipeline, tourist resort and various other small projects.

The value of Centrecorp’s investments are, on a national scale, relatively modest — however in the the poisonous atmosphere of small-town Northern Territory politics the combination of blackfellas, money and complex corporate structures are bound to attract some negative attention — particularly among the uninformed and those that remain wilfully blind to the objective facts.

The Alice Springs News is a freebie local weekly that usually runs to about 16 modest pages and is often more entertaining than informative. Like many freebie newspapers, on occasion the Alice Springs News can seem more like a hobby-horse for the proprietors pet peeves, predilections and prejudices.

And so it is, it seems, with Centrecorp and the three $1 shares owned by the Central Land Council.

On its own admission, the Alice Springs News has:

“… been covering the Centrecorp controversy in 44 reports and comment pieces since April 1998, and a dossier of Alice Springs News reports was a substantial part of the briefing NT Senator Nigel Scullion gave Senator Brandis.”

The reference to Senators Scullion and Brandis links to a series of questions asked by Senator Brandis of David Ross, Director of the Central Land Council, in Senate Community Affairs Committee Supplementary Estimates Hearings in late October 2008 and followup questions in early 2009.

On 14 May 2009 the Senate referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee a brief to investigate the relationship between the Central Land Council and Centrecorp.

The Terms of Reference direct the Committee to inquire and report by 11 August 2009 on:

1. the relationship between the Central Land Council and Centrecorp Aboriginal Investment Corporation Pty Ltd (‘Centrecorp’);

2. the committee must inquire into and report upon:

(i) the financial and management relationship between the Central Land Council and Centrecorp, including (without limitation) any equitable relationship between those entities,

(ii) whether taxpayers’ funds have been paid or transferred to Centrecorp and how those monies have been treated in the accounts of the Central Land Council and Centrecorp,

(iii) the nature and extent of Centrecorp’s business activities,

(iv) Centrecorp’s sources of revenue,

(v) the beneficiaries of Centrecorp business and other activities and any additional revenue it receives,

(vi) the nature and extent of Centrecorp disbursements to any charitable trusts or like entities,

(vii) the extent to which any Centrecorp beneficiaries and the Central Land Council are informed of Centrecorp’s business activities,

(viii) how Aboriginal Australians living in the Central Australia region benefit from Centrecorp’s business and charitable operations, and

(ix) all other matters considered necessary by the committee; and

3. the committee must hear evidence inter alia from:

(i) the Central Land Council,

(ii) the Auditor-General, and

(iii) Centrecorp.

One problem for the Senate’s committee is that not only has Centrecorp been the subject of a recent comprehensive investigation by the Office of Evaluation and Audit — which, while slapping it across the wrist on a couple of minor points, largely found it to be, as noted above, a “very successful private organisation”.

Another problem is that it seems that the bulk of the allegations against Centrecorp and the Central Land Council are based upon a long series of allegations promoted by the Alice Springs News .

Earlier last week the Senate committee published three of the submissions received by its inquiry – you can read them for yourself here.

The first submission, by the Commonwealth Auditor-General runs to a mere three-pages and notes that:

“As the trust deed specifically excludes CLC from receiving any benefit from the trust, CLC is not considered to have control over Centrecorp.”

That is a pretty succinct answer to the first of the Committee’s Terms of Reference – and something that anyone on reasonable enquiry would have been able to determine without wasting the Senate’s time.

The Central Land Council’s submission is extensive and notes the link between Senator Brandis’ question in Estimates of late October 2008 and early 2009 the persistent, and it says wrong-headed, coverage of the Centrecorp issue by the Alice Springs News since 1998, and the current Inquiry by the Senate Committee.

The Central Land Council notes, at page three of its submission, that:

Leaving aside for the present whether there has ever been a genuine controversy about Centrecorp, this claim that a dossier of Alice Springs News reports was a substantial part of the briefing provided to Senator Brandis, if correct, may explain how or why two Senate committees have been motivated to inquire into Centrecorp.

For that reason the multitude of factual errors and distortions evident in [the] Alice Springs News stories have been separately addressed in Appendix 2.

The CLC has appended this material in order to provide an objective measure, Hansard, to enable the Committee to see for itself how the Alice Springs News either distorts facts, or manufactures ‘facts’, in order to maintain its campaign against both Centrecorp and the CLC.

The Central Land Council refers to what it says may be evidence of the link between Senator Brandis and the campaign by the Alice Springs News against Centrecorp and the Central Land Council.

In Senate Estimates on 24 October 2008 Senator Brandis asked:

Question 126 — “Is it the case that the capital Centrecorp has used in order to acquire this large asset portfolio was seed funded from royalties paid by mining companies and other commercial entities with obligations to the central Australian Aboriginal people under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) or other relevant Commonwealth and Northern Territory statutes?”

In response the Central Land Council notes in its submission that:

Question 126 picks up a theme of the Alice Springs News first published in 1998, and repeated many times since, to the effect that Centrecorp is the beneficiary of royalties paid by mining companies…The Alice Springs News has been told repeatedly that the CLC has never paid a cent of royalties to Centrecorp, and there is not a shred of evidence to justify its allegations. It makes no difference, it [the Alice Springs News] has continued to publish this false allegation as fact.

Embedded in this allegation is the necessary inference that the CLC as:

• A Commonwealth statutory authority;
• That is governed by a representative council of 90 Aboriginal people from throughout
central Australia;
• That is independently audited annually by the Commonwealth’s Australian National Audit
Office;
• That is subject to the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act;
• That is subject to the Commonwealth Financial Management Act;
• Whose budget is approved annually by the Commonwealth Minister;
• That lodges its annual report with the Minister; and
• The Minister tables the annual report in Parliament every year;

has, in spite of all of that scrutiny and all of those controls, year after year somehow concealed a series of unlawful actions involving the wrongful transfer to Centrecorp, of large amounts of compensation funds received on behalf of traditional landowners.

Setting the proposition out in this way demonstrates how ridiculous the allegations are.

Appendix 2 of the CLC Submission examines quotes from 22 articles published in the 11 years that the Alice Springs News has written about Centrecorp and lists the CLC’s responses and comments on those articles.

The responses, because this issue goes to the heart of the CLC’s business and public accountability, focus on the repeated allegations by the Alice Springs News that Centrecorp was overly secretive and that it’s revenue and capital were sourced from mining and related royalties the responsibility of the CLC, as per these examples from April, May and August 2006 respectively:

The foundation of Centrecorp’s fabulous wealth isn’t hard work but a never ending stream of “sitdown” money (sic) created by the strike of a government pen.

…

The main source of Centrecorp’s revenue is beleved to be royalties required to be paid by resource companies operating on Aboriginal land.

…

[Centrecorp]…founded as a charitable institution to invest mining, oil and gas royalties on behalf of the Aboriginal people to whom they are due…

A single CLC response, to the publication by the Alice Springs News (online) on 19 December 2008) of questions by Senator Brandis in Estimates in December 2008, serves to highlight their concerns with these claims:

The question closely follows the spurious allegation published repeatedly by the Alice Springs News since 1998, to the effect that Centrecorp has received royalties from mining activities on Aboriginal land.

It has not.

Whether the Senate’s inquiry into the Central Land Council and Centrecorp is yet another case of going off half-cocked on the basis of inaccurate or otherwise flawed information remains to be seen.

Hearings of the Senate Committee scheduled for Alice Springs and Canberra have been postponed — no alternative dates for those Hearings have been set.

Maybe the good Senators realise that there is nothing left to inquire about and that they’ve been sold a pup?