Queensland election: David Crisafulli ‘secured $320,000 grant’ for his donor mate

David Crisafulli secured a $321,600 grant when a Newman government minister for a call centre in Townsville to be set up by an LNP donor who gave him a job when he lost his seat.

Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli in Townsville on Thursday. Picture: Liam Kidston.

David Crisafulli secured a taxpayer-funded $321,600 grant when he was a Newman government minister for a call centre to be set up in Townsville by an LNP donor who gave him a job when he lost his seat six months later.

Opposition Leader Mr Crisafulli was a consultant for donor Rabieh Krayem’s Outcome Results between April and September 2015, shortly after his defeat in the Townsville seat of Mundingburra at the election in January of that year.

In September 2014 while still an MP and minister for local government, community recovery and resilience, Mr Crisafulli told the ABC “we’re working on a major relocation of a major call centre from Melbourne to here (Townsville) which is getting very close to icing that deal”.

“(It) would be a great little shot in the arm,” he said at the time.

By November, the Newman government was announcing the grant, quoting Mr Crisafulli as the local member and crowing that the government had “lured” the company north.

“The call centre will be established by Outcome Results and operated by Foneup, with Set (Southern Edge Training) Solutions to start training new recruits this month,” the announcement said.

Mr Krayem was quoted in the government announcement and said the call centre was the first of its kind in Queensland and he was aiming to “increase staff to around 200 and establish similar call centres in other regional areas”.

On January 24, 2015 – one week before the election that wiped out the Newman government – Mr Crisafulli boasted that the grant he’d “secured” for the call centre had already resulted in 25 of the promised 125 jobs.

“In the same week, our unemployment in Townsville fell from 8.7 per cent to 7 per cent. Still so much more to do but heading in the right direction,” he posted on Facebook.

Campaigning in Townsville and his home town of Ingham in north Queensland on Thursday, Mr Crisafulli did not give direct answers about his role in Southern Edge Training, half-owned by Mr Krayem.

The Australian revealed that Mr Crisafulli served as sole director and chief executive of the company between December 1, 2015, and April 1, 2016, quitting two days after the federal regulator warned that it had uncovered ­serious “training quality issues” and was rejecting its national registration.

The LNP leader refused to say whether or when he knew about the serious training issues plaguing the company.

He said he left the business “because my promise of capital didn’t come through – I was with the business for four months and I left when that didn’t occur.”

Court and corporate documents reveal SET was in financial trouble before, during and after Mr Crisafulli’s control of the business.

Victorian government authorities cancelled the company’s training registration during his tenure, the Australian Taxation Office issued a legal demand for more than $100,000 in unpaid tax, and liquidators found it had likely traded while insolvent.

Mr Crisafulli paid liquidators who investigated him for insolvent trading $200,000 in three compensation payments in 2020 and 2021 when he was an LNP frontbencher and then ­opposition leader.

“The (liquidators’) report shows no findings and that I met my obligations,” he said, repeating the answer when asked about the company’s problems with the tax office, Victorian and federal training regulators, and the allegations of insolvent trading.

Asked what it said about his business judgment that he entered into a company that was plagued with problems, Mr Crisafulli said: “It says I do what I say I’m going to do, and that’s why I met my obligations.”

Mr Krayem did not respond to requests for comment from The Australian. He gave thousands of dollars to Mr Crisafulli’s campaign for Mundingburra in 2012, through one of his companies.

From Labor’s campaign in north Queensland, Treasurer Cameron Dick called the $200,000 Mr Crisafulli paid to liquidators “hush money”. He attacked Mr Crisafulli for failing to answer detailed questions.

“David Crisafulli has zero respect for money,” Mr Dick said. “He ran a training company for four months, he didn’t pay the tax office, he didn’t pay creditors.

“And why won’t he answer questions about what he did when he was the sole director of that company?”