Noongar Charitable Trust facing inquiry into $5m ‘mystery’
A royal commission-style inquiry will be held into claims an Aboriginal trust allegedly gave away $5m without members’ knowledge.
A royal commission-style inquiry will be held into claims an Aboriginal trust allegedly gave away $5m without members’ knowledge.
The West Australian Ombudsman has ordered the powerful new Charitable Trusts Commission to investigate everyone involved in a series of intriguing transactions that depleted the Noongar Charitable Trust, established with the proceeds of the sale of a community overseen by respected elder Ken Colbung. Mr Colbung died in 2010 after a lifetime of advocacy for Aboriginal education and culture. The trust’s aims were to alleviate poverty and suffering among Noongar people, in keeping with Mr Colbung’s work. But events of 2019-20 infuriated many community members.
Melbourne-based Equity Trustees, paid to be the professional trustees of the Noongar Charitable Trust, authorised payment of $5m for two residential properties in Perth in July 2019.
Those properties are now owned by a breakaway charity called the Aboriginal Housing Recovery Centre Limited.
In 2021, the board of WA’s most powerful land council, the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, learned $13.5m from the Noongar Charitable Trust was spent on a loss-making former horse ranch that global accounting firm EY said might be worth just $7.2m.
The board was also briefed on the details of the $5m property purchases in the Perth suburbs of Guildford and Midland. Equity Trustees faced the anger of Noongar people over its decision to agree to the purchases. There was astonishment at the decision to buy the 45ha former El Caballo dancing horse theme park and resort using $12m from the Noongar Charitable Trust.
A further $1.5m of trust money was used for improvements but the property needed millions more spent on it before it would be suitable for its intended purpose as accommodation for the homeless, according to a confidential draft report by EY.
The property includes a lifestyle village that lost $171,000 a year, according to the EY draft report obtained by The Australian.
The land council board, which was apparently aware of or approved of at least some of the transactions, has asked for an inquiry and the WA Ombudsman has agreed.
A spokeswoman for Equity Trustees told The Australian on Sunday it had provided information to the ombudsman.
The inquiry is possible because of the Charitable Trusts Commission, which began in November and is able to conduct investigations under what the McGowan government describes as “significantly expanded powers akin to those of a royal commission”.
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