The Sauce: Celeste Barber’s bushfire fund hits a legal wall
After weeks of back and forth, it appears comedian Celeste Barber will not be able to direct some of the $52 million raised during the bushfire crisis to fire-ravaged communities. Plus the seeming Kiama Curse and gun-toting politicians in THE SAUCE.
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After weeks of back and forth, it appears comedian Celeste Barber will not be able to direct some of the $52 million raised during the bushfire crisis to fire-ravaged communities.
The cash bonanza has been transferred to the RFS and Brigades Donations Fund, but rules governing the trust dictate that any money in the kitty must only be used to buy and maintain firefighting equipment and facilities, provide training and resources, and cover administrative expenses.
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons sought advice from the NSW Supreme Court to see if those rules could be amended, but it was revealed in Budget Estimates this week that the chances of success were unlikely.
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While the advice suggested some of the funds might also be able to be spent on services and programs to support individual members “as opposed to brigades” and also families of the fallen and seriously injured, it was unlikely the money could be shared to other charity groups as Barber had desired, he said.
“It is most unlikely that there is going to be any ability to see the trust move money to other charitable groups is my layperson’s reading of the advice I have received,” Fitzsimmons disclosed.
“My understanding is there are no avenues for legal intervention.”
Greens MP David Shoebridge, who has introduced a Bill to amend the NSW Rural Fire Service to change the way the fund’s donations can be used, said there was a solution to the mess.
He called on the state government to support the legislation. “It is now clear that this money cannot go where it was intended without a change to the law,” he said.
KIAMA CURSE
There must be something in the water in Kiama.
Long before Family Minister Gareth Ward was found wandering “naked and confused” around a unit block in Potts Point last week, the Kiama MP’s predecessor Matt Brown was busted dancing on a parliamentary couch in his underpants on Budget night.
While Brown, who was police minister at the time, denied reports he had also straddled a fellow MP’s breasts during the incident, he admitted he had “made a mistake”.
While Brown lost his job, Ward has been spared, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian standing by yet another troubled minister.
In his statement, Ward blamed having being placed under general anaesthetic that day for a medical procedure for becoming “disorientated” while at his Sydney residence.
The incident comes three years after Ward was targeted in a bizarre New York “massage scam” where he had booked an online service only to have two young men turn up to his hotel, threatening to blackmail him.
RANGE REGRET
It seems Police Minister David Elliott will forever regret uploading pictures of himself on Facebook with a firearm. Senior prison sources have noted the long line of former corrections ministers, ministerial staff and Sydney journalists that have lined up to fire guns — now potentially illegally — on the range.
Not only did Elliott’s successor, Corrections Minister Anthony Roberts, also visit the Mark Simmons Range late last year, but one of his staff also revealed taking up an invitation to shoot at the venue.
The former Labor corrections minister, Tony Kelly, said he had also visited the range but noted he had had a gun licence at the time. “It is quite a high category of licence,” he said.
Shoot.
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Originally published as The Sauce: Celeste Barber’s bushfire fund hits a legal wall