Reef fund rang in finance whiz days after surprise $444m grant

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has advertised for help to “scale up” its charity after recieving the $444 million grant.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg. Picture: AAP

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation advertised for a financial controller to help “scale up” the charity in the wake of the Turnbull government’s $444 million grant, sparking accusations from Labor that it lacked the capacity to manage such a significant investment.

The Australian can also reveal the GBRF’s philanthropy committee has not sat for four years, despite claims from Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg that the government chose the charity for the grant because it was the “most appropriate organisation to partner with, to leverage off the private sector’s philanthropic efforts”.

Labor will use the resumption of parliament today to increase pressure on the Coalition over the funding, which Mr Frydenberg yesterday declared had met the government’s grant guidelines and would meet objectives in protecting the reef.

A boutique recruitment organisation, OnTalent, partnered with the GBRF in May, days after the government announced the grant, to “appoint a highly skilled and passionate financial controller” who would “play a key role in the scaling up of the organisation in response to this incredible new investment commitment”.

The foundation’s spokesman said it had long employed a chief ­financial officer and broader ­financial team “to maintain good financial management” but the CFO had recently been promoted chief operating officer. The charity’s COO is Kerri Ryan. “The advertised position is a replacement for the prior role (CFO), albeit with a slightly different title,” he said.

Opposition environment spokes­man Tony Burke said the “shuffling of jobs just shows the foundation lacked the capacity to manage money on this scale”.

The foundation revealed in answers to questions on notice last week that the philanthropy committee, which is chaired by Malcolm Turnbull’s former Goldman Sachs senior colleague Stephen Fitzgerald, has not sat since Nov­ember 25, 2014.

“At this meeting it was agreed that strategic funding including philanthropy should be a standing item on the board agenda,” the answer to questions from Labor senator Kristina Keneally said.

Stephen Roberts, the former Citigroup executive who quit the foundation in June after he was charged with alleged criminal cartel conduct, was chairman of the committee from March 23, 2016. to May 8.

“How does a foundation that is set up to raise money have a board-level philanthropy committee that hasn’t met for nearly four years?” Senator Keneally said.

“If we take the foundation’s explanation at face value, then why have a philanthropy committee at all? They didn’t retire the philanthropy committee, even after Mr Roberts was charged with alleged criminal cartel conduct. They’ve kept it going and put Mr Fitzgerald in charge of it. If it doesn’t meet, what’s the point?”

Cabinet’s expenditure review committee decided on March 28 to seek a commercial partner for a reef plan and the Prime Minister met the head of the foundation 11 days later to inform the organisation of the $444m grant. The money was transferred in one lump sum on June 28, days before the end of the financial year, and is being held in six term deposits with the ANZ, Bank of Queensland, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB and Suncorp.

Control and annual spending of the money will depend on yet-to-be-published “work plans” being developed to improve water quality and tackle crown-of-thorn starfish and reef restoration. The charity’s spokesman said there were conversations with other agencies over potential secondments but any decision would be in line with the grant agreement’s requirements.

Mr Burke said government agencies that “should have received the money in the first place” may end up working for the private foundation: “It’s a small charitable fund that has been involved in a number of reasonable but modest projects. Not only have they become the gatekeeper for taxpayers’ money, they are trying to get public servants to work for them.”