Labor ultimatum for John Barilaro after scathing report into bushfire funding

Sydney silk Geoffrey Watson SC says former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro’s intervention in a government bushfire recovery program should be referred to ICAC.

Former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ben Symons

Eminent Sydney silk Geoffrey Watson SC says former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro’s intervention in a government bushfire recovery program should be referred to ICAC and could be the most egregious case of misallocating public funds he has ever seen in NSW.

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns earlier gave Mr Barilaro 24 hours to explain why he had ­diverted government funding away from Labor-held electorates heavily affected by Black Summer bushfires, or he would refer the matter to ICAC.

Mr Minns offered the ultimatum on Friday morning, a day after the NSW Audit Office handed down a scathing report on the $541m Bushfire Local Economic Recovery program, saying the ­administration process underpinning it “lacked integrity” and “transparency”.

Auditor-general Margaret Crawford offered particular criticism of Mr Barilaro’s role in the funding distribution, saying his office intervened “without reason” and resulted in a number of fast-tracked projects in Labor areas being denied vital government funding.

NSW Auditor-General Margaret Crawford. Picture: AAP

She particularly questioned Mr Barilaro’s decision to implement an arbitrary $1m funding threshold, saying it resulted in the 35 projects selected by the department for fast-tracked funding being slimmed down to 26, ­excluding electorates held by the Labor Party, especially the Blue Mountains. Of the 27 remaining projects selected for funding, 26 were in Coalition-held electorates.

At the time of writing, Mr Barilaro had not responded to questions from The Weekend Australian, nor had he offered a public explanation for his intervention in the recovery program.

Mr Watson said he could “barely believe” the distribution of the first round of the program – $107.8m to deliver immediate and significant economic impacts to high and moderate bushfire-­impacted areas – which appeared to be a “structural expenditure ­… misallocated for political purposes”.

There was nothing Mr Barilaro could say to mitigate the findings of the NSW Audit Office, Mr Watson said, arguing the allocation of funds for anything other than a public purpose could fall under the statutory definition of corruption, or in the most serious of cases, misconduct in public office.

“Misconduct in public office is a criminal breach and is one which has been properly examined by ICAC,” the director of the Centre for Public Integrity said.

“This is $100m. This is not pork barrelling, because presumably, those people in Labor electorates needed that money. And they needed it, because of an emergency.”

The NSW Audit Office has handed down a scathing report on former deputy premier John Barilaro’s intervention in a government bushfire recovery program. Picture: NSW Rural Fire Service

Former NSW Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy KC supported Mr Watson’s opinion, saying Mr Barilaro “deserves to be scrutinised carefully” by ICAC.

He said The Weekend Australian that the matter could be categorised as misusing public funds for political gain.

“The difference is, when it comes to a government agency or department actually allocating money, and where it’s under the control of a minister, the minister has to act according to the public interest,” he said.

“And if the minister in question deliberately acted purely for political gain, that would not be in the public interest. And therefore could constitute wrongful behaviour.”

Mr Minns told radio 2GB he could not fathom how a political leader would choose to cherry pick electorates in the aftermath of a crisis such as the Black Summer infernos that ravaged communities across the eastern seaboard in 2019-2020.

“If we don’t get answers today, and I mean in the next 24 hours, I do believe it needs to be referred to the ICAC to determine what happened here,” he said.

“I’ve never heard of this happening before; state or federal, Labor or Liberal-National.”