Warren Entsch’s taxpayer-funded staffer also worked for his wife

Warren Entsch confirms a taxpayer-funded staffer did his personal bookwork, while working for his wife’s ‘empowering women’ private company.

Yolonde and Warren Entsch at the annual Aussie Locums Blue Tie Gala Ball – a fundraiser for Moyamoya Australia. Picture: Sandhya Ram

Warren Entsch has confirmed one of his taxpayer-funded staffers did his personal bookwork from his home office, and his electoral allowance reconciliation, and at the same time worked for his wife’s “empowering women” company.

Bridey Walsh was the executive officer of Yolonde Entsch’s Empowering Women Empowering Communities (EWEC) business between January 2020 and September 2021, at the same time as she was paid by the taxpayer to work in Mr Entsch’s Leichhardt electorate office in Cairns.

Ms Walsh’s professional profile on LinkedIn goes into detail about the work she did with Ms Entsch – now the Liberal National Party’s candidate for the state seat of Cairns – but she does not mention her role with Mr Entsch.

Bridey Walsh and Yolonde Entsch. Picture: Facebook

Queensland Labor senator Murray Watt called for the workings of Mr Entsch’s office to be ­investigated by the appropriate federal authorities.

“These allegations are the latest in what is becoming a long line of issues Warren Entsch needs to answer for,” Senator Watt said.

“It is essential that the appropriate authority investigate and get to the bottom of what has been going on up in Cairns.”

The Department of Finance ­requires commonwealth-funded offices and associated resources to be used only for the dominant ­purpose of conducting parliamentary business.

Parliamentary business does not include anything that might be perceived as providing a “personal or commercial benefit to you or another person”.

The Weekend Australian is not suggesting Ms Walsh did not perform parliamentary business while employed as an electorate officer, only that her employment raises questions about the running of the veteran MP’s office.

Separately, Queensland Health this week referred to the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission allegations that Mr Entsch organised for a property developer party donor friend to jump the queue and get a Pfizer Covid jab on Thursday Island, despite being ineligible under federal health rules.

Ms Walsh, who now works as a senior administrator at a school in Cairns, lists on LinkedIn a number of achievements during her time with Ms Entsch’s EWEC, including “event development and Australia-wide social media campaign (over 3 million views)” for the Doomadgee Under the Stars NAIDOC Ball.

The pair raised $20,000 in GoFundMe donations and $95,000 in corporate and government sponsorship for the ball, Ms Walsh said, and collected donations of 3000 ball gowns.

The planned ball in July 2021 was cancelled due to Covid. The dresses and suits were left in the community.

Ms Walsh’s LinkedIn also said Ms Entsch’s business received two NAIDOC Week grants in 2020 and 2021, through the National Indigenous Australians Agency.

Yolande Entsch and Bridey Walsh on the Empowering Women Empowering Communities Facebook page. Picture: Facebook

The Australian reported this week that Ms Entsch’s YLE Enterprises – trading as EWEC – received a $1000 NAIDOC Week grant from Mr Entsch’s Leichhardt electorate in November 2020, but Mr Entsch’s announcement did not declare their relationship.

In a lengthy interview with The Australian earlier this month, Mr Entsch was asked who Ms Walsh was. “I don’t know, probably somebody that worked with Londe at some stage,” he said, referring to his wife, Yolonde. When it was put to him Ms Walsh was supposed to work for him in his office, Mr Entsch’s memory was refreshed.

“I had Bridey, wait a minute. She was the one that came, she had been with me for a short period of time. She was doing a couple of days a week for me doing all of my bookwork, as I’ve always had people doing it. My bookwork and all the electorate allowance, because they’re all combined,” he said.

“I get somebody there that is not actually physically working – well, she comes into the office – but she doesn’t do it, she works independent of it, because she does all my personal stuff, which is integrated with all of the electorate allowance … she worked in my office and in my home office.”

Asked whether she was paid by the taxpayer, Mr Entsch said, “yes, of course”, adding “she also did work for Yolonde as well”.

Asked whether she was paid for by the taxpayer for that work, Mr Entsch said: “No, I think Yolonde also paid her separately.”

In a speech to federal parliament in March 2021, Mr Entsch praised the “amazing” International Women’s Day masquerade ball organised by his “beautiful wife” and Empowering Women and Empowering Communities.

“I would also like to acknowledge the enormous efforts of Bridey Walsh and the four ladies who made the masks … (and) the many people behind the scenes who donated resources.”

Federal LNP MP Warren Entsch during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

When contacted by The Australian, Ms Walsh said she had begun working for Ms Entsch as a volunteer, shortly after starting to do bookwork for Mr Entsch both in his office and from her home.

Ms Walsh said after an initial volunteer period, Ms Entsch took her on as a paid employee. She said the work she did for Ms Entsch was not funded out of the work she was doing for Mr Entsch.

“No, not at all,” she said. “I usually had one day, one or two days, that I focused more on the work for Warren, and then I’d sort of fit in other stuff around it,” she said.

“Bookwork’s bookwork, I wasn’t really engaging very much with Warren, in particular.”

Asked if she did the bookwork for his electorate or him personally, she said “for the electorate”.

But later, when told Mr Entsch had said she had done his personal bookwork from his home office and had worked for Ms Entsch’s company, Ms Walsh said: “I had been, yeah. I had been to his home office, but not very often.”

She said she was not surprised that people in Cairns would think she worked solely for Ms Entsch.

“I wasn’t in there (the electorate office) very often. I was more interested in the work I was doing with Yolonde, so that’s probably why people could say that.”

She said she did not promote her work with Mr Entsch on her LinkedIn or social media because she was “not a political person”.

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