Andrew Wilkie reverse on funds handout

Andrew ­Wilkie, who got funding for an arts centre, is challenging the same mechanism in the same-sex ballot.

Independent MP Andrew ­Wilkie benefited from a special advance of $4 million for an arts centre in his Tasmanian electorate in 2012, but is now challenging the use of the same technicality to fund the postal ballot on same-sex marriage.

Mr Wilkie is leading the High Court challenge against Malcolm Turnbull’s proposed $122m postal survey and says the government is “exceeding its powers” by skirting around the need to legislate for the ballot.

The Australian can also confirm the government has already spent at least $8m on advertising relating to the postal survey to be conducted by the Australian ­Bureau of Statistics and each ballot will contain a barcode to match the person it is sent to.

In documents tended to the High Court, Mr Wilkie argues that the use of the special ­advance mechanism set out in the annual appropriations bills, and signed into effect by Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on August 9, is unlawful because there is no “urgent need” for the funds.

The annual appropriation bills allow for the provision of a special advance to Senator Cormann, if he is satisfied there is an “urgent need for expenditure, in the current year, that is not provided for”.

The argument is one of several in the High Court being run by Mr Wilkie and lesbian mother Felicity Marlowe, as well as the Brisbane branch of the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays organisation.

The Australian can reveal that Mr Wilkie was a beneficiary of one of the 32 uses of the “Advance to the Finance Minister” mechanism during the six years of the Rudd and Gillard governments. In May, 2012 — 11 days after the federal budget was handed down — Mr Wilkie announced $4m of funding was being provided to build a new multi-purpose Moonah Arts and Community Centre in his electorate, Denison.

At the time, Mr Wilkie said he had presented the proposal to Julia Gillard in March of that year, in an admission seized on by government sources as evidence the Moonah Arts centre project was “not unforeseen”.

To trigger the special advance mechanism in the appropriation bills, the “urgent need” for the ­expenditure must arise because of an “erroneous omission” or ­because the “expenditure was ­unforeseen”.

Mr Wilkie, who helped Ms Gillard form government, yesterday told The Australian he was unaware of where the funding for the arts centre came from.

“I wasn’t aware of the mechanism by which the Moonah Arts Centre was funded,” he said.

When pressed on the differences between the funding for the arts centre and the government’s postal survey, Mr Wilkie said: “I’m not in a position to comment about this particular court case while our application is before the court.”

A government source yesterday said it was “interesting” Mr Wilkie would “question the use of the Advance to the Finance Minister (mechanism) ... including questioning what is ‘urgent and unforeseen’ when he was a direct beneficiary.”

Mr Wilkie has attacked the government’s postal ballot as “wasteful and harmful” to members of the LGBTI community.

Senator Cormann yesterday said ballot printing was under way, with the survey material to be posted on September 12.

“Approximately $8m will have been spent on advertising production and placement with other costs related to updating the ­Electoral Roll, operating the ­Information Line, establishing IT and security protection, survey ­operations, and materials printing not yet finalised,” he told The ­Australian.