‘Just a dinner’: Anthony Albanese making a meal of it
Anthony Albanese spends another day playing word games over whether Indian banquet was ALP fund raiser.
Anthony Albanese has again failed to deny a Toorak dinner he shared with the millionaire owner of a deregistered international college was a Labor Party fund raising event.
For a second straight day, the Prime Minister ducked questions about whether the November 12 banquet with Indian-Australian businessmen at a Toorak mansion raised election campaign donations for the ALP.
Mr Albanese, who was touring the key outer eastern Melbourne electorate of Aston on Thursday, brushed aside questions relating to the event — which one guest described on social media as a “four hours of exquisite cuisine and hospitality — as “just a dinner”.
“My recollection is that it was a dinner and nowhere near as long as it was reported, I got to say… but I engaged with people,” he said.
“I’m having a dinner tonight too and I’ll have lunch at some stage today … and I had breakfast this morning as well.”
Pressed by The Australian on what was discussed at the dinner and why former Labor premier Daniel Andrews also attended, Mr Albanese said; “It’s just a dinner, what do want me to say… what I had for dinner?”
The Australian revealed on Thursday that Mr Albanese was the main drawcard at a private dinner in a Toorak mansion at which the PM sat next to foreign student kingpin Rupinder Brar whose international college has been deregistered after federal investigators uncovered “significant noncompliance”.
“ASQA made a decision to cancel the registration of Barkly International College in May 2024 after significant noncompliance was identified during an audit of the provider’s compliance ... ASQA’s findings of noncompliance were in relation to training and assessment, enrolment and marketing and governance systems,” an ASQA spokesperson said.
Mr Brar, who also runs a successful commercial and residential construction business, was one of about a dozen Indian-Australian businessmen who dined with Mr Albanese at the VIP event on November 12 last year.
In an Instagram post shortly after the lunch, Mr Brar stated: “Great Meeting with Honourable Prime Minister of Australia!”
In addition to Mr Andrews, the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary, David Epstein, also attended the event that came in the midst of a legal action by Mr Brar’s Barkly International College to overturn its deregistration by the Australian Skills Quality Authority.
Multiple Labor and Indian community figures have told The Australian that the event was more than likely an ALP fund raising event that could have raised tens of thousands of dollars in donations.
“Why else would the Prime Minister go to such a dinner,” one Labor figure said.
Barkly offers Indian students a range of courses, including English language skills, business management, marketing, mechanics, cooking and kitchen management and charges students between $7500 and $18,000 for the courses.
“Barkly International College strives to offer affordable and high-quality education in a friendly environment,” the college website states.
Barkly has spent more than six months fighting to save its registration and on December 5 lodged a request with authorities to stay the deregistration. On December 11, authorities granted an interim stay on the condition Barkly does not recruit or enrol students in any course.
“Barkly International College has appealed ASQA’s decision with the Administrative Review Tribunal. For legal reasons it is not appropriate to provide further information on cases where regulatory action is underway and not finalised,” an agency spokesperson said.
ASQA has confirmed that it does not automatically cancel the qualifications of former students following the cancellation of a provider’s registration.
But the watchdog confirmed that if the ART upholds ASQA’s decision, Barkly International College must offer students a place in an alternative course with another Australian education provider or refund unspent tuition fees to the student.
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