Queensland election: LNP’s Yolonde Entsch refuses to answer taxpayer grant questions
The LNP’s candidate for Cairns, Yolonde Entsch, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about Morrison government grants her companies received when her husband was a federal MP.
The LNP’s candidate for Cairns, Yolonde Entsch, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about Morrison government grants her companies received when her husband was a federal MP.
Ms Entsch was campaigning with LNP leader David Crisafulli in far north Queensland on Tuesday, announcing funding for the Manunda Sport Precinct in the Labor-held electorate of Cairns.
The Australian has previously reported that her husband, veteran Liberal MP Warren Entsch, announced at least two grants to companies connected to his wife from his Leichhardt electorate allocation of federal government funding – without publicly declaring the link to Ms Entsch.
In 2021, Mr Entsch announced $111,975 in funding for 28 community organisations as part of the Morrison government’s $20m volunteer grants fund, including $4465 to women’s empowerment charity, The Social Effect. He did not disclose that his wife, Ms Entsch, was the president and face of the organisation.
The previous year, Mr Entsch gave YLE Enterprises $1000 to help celebrate NAIDOC Week in November 2020. The company was one of 11 recipients of grant to “help celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander excellence” and Mr Entsch did not disclose it was his wife’s private company.
Ms Entsch is not Indigenous, but ran a NAIDOC week event in Cairns.
Separately from Mr Entsch, the Morrison government gave Ms Entsch’s private company a $213,725 two-year grant from its Indigenous Languages and Arts program to teach pottery in the remote Aboriginal community of Doomadgee, outside of Mr Entsch’s electorate.
She was not required to declare her relationship with Mr Entsch as part of the application process.
On Tuesday in Cairns, The Australian approached Ms Entsch to ask questions about these grants, but was rebuffed by the LNP candidate who claimed she had already answered this masthead’s questions.
The Australian attempted to ask whether she had received any special treatment from the federal government because of her relationship with Mr Entsch, whether the grants from Mr Entsch’s electorate office to companies associated with her were a conflict of interest, and whether the companies had declared the relationship when applying for the grants.
Ms Entsch repeatedly responded: “I’ve already answered those questions, but thank you”.
That is not true. She has not answered or returned repeated phone calls or texts from this masthead, and left the LNP state convention when approached by a journalist on these issues last year.
In April, in response to questions from The Australian about Ms Entsch and The Social Effect grant, the LNP headquarters answered on her behalf, and said: “Throughout her years of extensive charitable work, Ms Entsch has complied with her obligations regarding public funding”.
“Labor’s smear campaign against a Cairns Citizen of the Year proves how desperate they have become to distract from their failures after a decade in office.”
Mr Entsch has said he only announced the grants and was not involved in the decision-making process for any of them. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Labor holds the state seat of Cairns on a margin of 5.59 per cent; it is one of the LNP’s target seats that it needs to win in order to form majority government after the October 26 state election.
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