Great Barrier Reef: former board member describes $444m grant as 'unthinkable'
The environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, would not say whose idea it was to award a $444m government grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, on the same day a former member of the foundation’s board described the allocation as “unthinkable”.
Michael Myer, of the Myer family, was a member of the reef foundation’s board from 2001 to 2004 until he became concerned at what he called the growing “corporatist” direction of the organisation.
Myer, a conservation activist who endorsed Richard Di Natale before the last federal election, said he had deep concerns the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Frydenberg, had offered such a large sum of money to “an organisation that is really not set up to manage that kind of money”.
“What is shocking to me is that without any due diligence half a billion of taxpayers’ money has been given to what is still a small charity,” he said. “It’s unheard of.”
In an interview with the radio station 2GB on Thursday, Frydenberg was pushed on whose idea it was to award the grant to the foundation: his office, the prime minister’s, or the environment and energy department.
Frydenberg would not say where the idea originated, saying “it is the government’s idea,” and then “it was a good idea and it was the government’s idea”.
Asked again, he said: “There’s nothing to hide here.”
The comments come as environment groups say they are concerned the agreement for the controversial grant contains no mention of climate change or its effect on the reef.
Although the foundation has said climate change is the biggest threat to the future of the reef, the agreement between the government’s reef trust and the foundation does not use the words once in more than 90 pages.
The document states that expected outcomes from the grant partnership are improved management of the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area, protection of attributes that contribute to the value of the world heritage area, and “management of key threats to the Great Barrier Reef World heritage area, including poor water quality and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks”.
The outcomes are linked to the government’s Reef 2050 plan, which identifies climate change as the greatest threat to the reef but has been criticised by conservationists for failing to prioritise climate-related work and policy.
The agreement states that activities required under the grant include water quality activities, crown-of-thorns starfish control, “reef restoration and adaptation science activities”, Indigenous and community reef protection work, and reef monitoring and reporting activities.
“The outcomes in the grant agreement are explicitly linked to the government’s Reef 2050 plan outcomes, which don’t include addressing climate change,” said Matt Rose, economics program manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation.
“The best way to protect the Great Barrier Reef is to reduce climate pollution, yet the Reef 2050 plan and this grant agreement fails to direct funding to work on this issue.”
Glen Klatovsky, a campaign strategist at 350.org, said the agreement was a “catastrophic government failure”.
“We have a big problem with the Reef 2050 plan in that it largely ignores climate change and therefore this agreement largely ignores climate change,” he said. “Crown-of-thorns and water quality issues such as run-off are referred to time and time again. They are consequential and important but very subsidiary to climate change, which is the primary risk.”
Klatovsky said the agreement was a symptom of broader failure in Australian climate policy “as a whole” and said the organisation supported calls by Labor earlier this week for the grant money to be returned.
A spokeswoman for the foundation said Myer had not been involved with them for 14 years “so it’s not surprising that he may not be familiar with our work and processes to protect the reef”.
She said the grant agreement was a legal document and its partnership with the reef trust would “build on the Australian and Queensland governments’ Reef 2050 plan, which is based on the best available science and recognises climate change as a threat to the reef”.
“And the foundation has also been clear and consistent in expressing our view that climate change is the most significant threat to the reef,” she said.
“But we also need mitigation meas-
ures because scientists tell us the best way to protect and restore the reef is to match global efforts to tackle climate change with projects to reduce other threats such as water quality and crown-of-thorns starfish.”
On Wednesday the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said the government’s decision to award the grant without a tender process was “an ongoing scandal” and was an example of the need for a national integrity commission.
“Now we don’t have a national integrity commission until Labor gets elected but, in the meantime, I can only hope that the prime minister makes a proper and detailed explanation of this whole process,” he said.
“And it’s certainly the case that when parliament resumes next week, Labor will endeavour to get a full and proper explanation of this process.”
The government has defended the grant process as transparent and thorough and says it was considered by cabinet’s expenditure review committee before it was offered to the foundation.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment and Energy said the grant agreement outlined specific outcomes the foundation was expected to deliver toward the Reef 2050 plan.
She said schedule five of the agreement “details how the foundation has to deliver on reef restoration and adaptation science”.
Schedule five of the agreement suggests projects could include “newly developed and innovative activities to repair reef damage and build the Great Barrier Reef’s social, ecological and economic resilience” and projects that “drive innovation and explore and advance new technologies and approaches to reef restoration”, building on design work already undertaken by other government agencies.