Grants for supporters of ex-Hamas chief Sinwar; Nick Scali’s legal dramas far from over

Thousands of dollars have been furnished by Creative Australia, headed by Adrian Collette, towards supporters of Sinwar prior to and since October 7, 2023. Picture: Britta Campion

Kicking over rocks at Creative Australia over the past week has exposed a thriving dysfunction that’s set in under the leadership of CEO Adrian Collette, now into his sixth year running the organisation.

We’re not even talking about the fiasco involving artist Khaled Sabsabi and all the fizz bubbling up around his early works, pieces that played on images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the 9/11 terrorist attacks; those works were at least ambiguous in their suggestion of any support for either.

What we’re actually talking about are the generous taxpayer-funded grants that have been handed out to artists who’ve properly broadcast their hero-worship for jihadi leaders, namely former Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar.

Thousands of dollars have been furnished by Creative Australia towards supporters of Sinwar prior to – and since – the October 7 massacres of 2023.

Karen Wyld. Picture: Dominic Guerrera

“Vale to the martyr Sinwar,” wrote artist Karen Wyld, recipient of $94,830 in Creative Australia funding since 2022. “Resisting colonisation until his last breath, fighting the genocidal oppressors like a hero, sacrificing his life for love of his people and ancestral land.” And keeping a one-year-old hostage, let’s not forget that.

Not only did Wyld receive generous government grants, but she was also appointed by Creative Australia to sit on various peer assessment panels to decide on which artists should be entitled to further taxpayer funding. Imagine appointing a terrorist sympathiser to act as a de facto custodian of public money? We did say the dysfunction was rife!

But Wyld is not alone. Natalia Figueroa Barroso posted her admiration for Hamas on Instagram; she received $25,880 in March 2023. Another grant of $42,452 was given to Matt Chun and Amy McQuire to produce a children’s book.

Matt Chun.

Quoting Sinwar on the day he was killed, Chun posted on Instagram: “A minute of living with dignity and pride is better than a thousand years of a miserable life under the boots of the occupation.” This while Anthony Albanese was rightfully calling Sinwar an “enemy of peace-loving people everywhere”.

Chun and his affiliates are entitled to their views, to run their own delusional piece of software. But must they be funded and legitimised from the public purse? Is there not a single piece of hospital equipment that could be purchased instead of paying these people to propound their sick ideology?

Meanwhile, Collette’s leadership fumbles plainly extend beyond the smashed urn of the Venice Biennale and the fallout of the past week. His side hustle involves chairing the board of Music Australia, another grant-funding body that’s umbilically linked to the Creative Australia mothership.

Its seven-member council – each of them paid an annual salary of $25,000 – includes Fred Leone, a self-described cultural leader whose social media underwent a vigorous scrubbing in January following bizarre statements posted about Jews.

Fred Leone. Source: fredleone/Instagram

“Zionists are stopping artists from performing around Australia,” Leone claimed in one post. “Hands up all the proud zionists in the Australian Music Industry! Wave ya flag instead of hiding behind ya money and power. We are boycotting you! Across the board, you don’t get to thrive here any more.”

Ah, yes, the old trope of the greedy, avaricious Jew. Was Leone really suggesting that Jewish artists won’t get funding traction or a fair hearing while he’s on the council?

No serious chair – although we are talking about Collette – would want to keep a guy like that on their board. A public company ­director wouldn’t survive the hour if they broadcast such hate or dragged their organisation into disrepute.

But Fred? He’s thriving! Still on the Music Australia council and still being paid – except now he’s keeping his thoughts to himself. “I will no longer be expressing my personal opinions on the matter while acting in a public position,” he said in a statement.

Arts Minister Tony Burke, who appointed Leone to the council, has done nothing to remove Leone from this discredited body.

And Creative Australia’s response? “We have spoken with Fred Leone and as a result he has issued a statement.”

With responses as feeble as that, it’s no wonder the whole place is a mess.

Nick Scali woes far from over

Nick Scali may finally have finished delivering delayed furniture shipments to irate customers, but the drama caused by the failure of the furniture retailer’s main freight company is far from over.

Readers may remember that Nick Scali, and its customers, faced a nightmare last year when the collapse of Lion Global Forwarding left more than 240 containers full of furniture stuck on the wharf rather than in people’s homes.

While not Nick Scali’s fault, it was a reputational blow for the retailer, and a potential holiday season disaster for customers faced with the prospect of hosting family Christmas on battered old couches and plastic tables from Bunnings. All because Lion, not its client, had failed to pay the bills to major shipping lines. To add insult to injury, when Nick Scali first took the ­matter to court, the company was ordered to cough up another $2m to Lion in the hope that the freight forwarder would pay its own bills and furniture would again begin to flow.

It eventually cost Nick Scali about $2.8m to free its customers’ goods from lock-up, with the company forced to cover the freight bills for the 17 or so the shipping lines hired – and then not paid – by Lion, which called in liquidators in November. Shortly after the last cheque cleared from Nick Scali, presumably. And that payment came on top of $1.2m Nick Scali had already handed over in October, when the drama broke loose.

The bad news for Nick Scali is that the drama appears to be far from over.

The latest creditor’s report from SV Partners liquidator Matthew Bookless suggests that Lion’s books show he’s still pursuing a demand for Nick Scali to hand over $4.4m in allegedly unpaid bills – a figure the retailer hotly disputes given it handed over about $3.2m to Lion just ahead of its collapse, and still had to pay out $2.8m or so to shipping companies to get hold of the furniture Lion failed to dispatch to customers.

No mention in Bookless’s report of the fate of Nick Scali’s cash, but when Lion sole director Theo Karabetsos put the company into liquidation in mid-November it had only $208,000 or so in the bank and owed another $11.5m to trade creditors – mostly shipping lines – plus another $6.5m to the Commonwealth Bank.

And to add insult to injury, Nick Scali now faces additional claims from shipping major Ocean Network Express, which wants another $150,000 for the tardy return of more than 40 shipping containers, as the retailer scrambled to ship and empty the goods to customers across the country.

At between $108 and $372 a day, that quickly adds up.