How can you spot an uncharitable charity?

On 3 July 2018 Liberal MP for Warringah and former sacked Australian prime minister Tony Abbott gave the 2018 Bob Carter Commemorative Lecture  titled “Time to pull out of Paris” at an Australian Environment Foundation event at CQ Functions in Melbourne.

So who and what is the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF)?

AEF is registered as a charity and its current board comprises:

BOSTOCK, THOMAS Chairperson

HILL, JOANNA Director

MORAN, ALAN Director

OXLEY, ALAN Director

QUIRK, THOMAS Director

RAE, JEFFREY Director

RHEESE, WILLIAM Director

RIDD, PETER Director

Its address is 19 Robinson Rd, Hawthorn, VIC 3122.

According to the Australian Business Register as at 4 July 2018, AEF business names are Murray Darling Alliance, Listentous and Australian Climate Science Coalition and its trading name is Australian Environment Foundation Ltd.

The foundation has no employees and is allegedly run by up to 10 volunteers.

AEF has no income except donations and in the 2016 financial year these donations totalled $1,175.

The AEF reported to the charity commission that its charity work consisted of updating the AEF website, sending out regular newsletters to AEF members on current environment issues, and on consequent benefits or costs of these issues, as well as holding public meeting with highly qualified speakers. However, although it spent $8,929 on these activities in 2013-14, it spent a mere $667 in 2014-15 and no money at all in 2015-16.

One has to suspect that the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) may now be picking up the tab for any outlays on newsletters, given AEF's close association with this far-right pressure group.

Venue hire and other expenses related to its "public meetings" appear to be picked up by corporate sponsors such as Bayer Crop Science and Monsanto in the past.

The original AEF website can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20170620125239/http://aefweb.info/ where its right wing ratbaggery was on full view.

According to the latest version of its website:

The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a non-profit, membership-based organisation that seeks to protect the environment, while preserving the rule of law, property rights, and the freedom of the individual. 

We take an evidence-based, solution-focused approach to environmental issues.    

While it may be true that "We are all environmentalists now", the great majority of Australians have little or no say in the environmental policies being put to governments – federal, state or local.  These policies are almost exclusively the domain of a tight network of conservation groups ensuring one view, and one view only, is put forward.   

The AEF is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians.  

   

So what is this difference it speaks about?

Here is part of the answer.

Source Watch as at 4 July 2018:

The Australian Environment Foundation is a front group founded by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a conservative Melbourne-based think tank.

The director of the environment unit of the IPA, Jennifer Marohasy was the founding Chairwoman and is listed as a Director in the organisation's documents with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). Mahorasy is also the listed registrant of the group's website, although the address and phone number for the website registration are identical to the address and phone number for the Victorian office of the logging industry front group, Timber Communities Australia. [1] [2]

In July 2005, the month after AEF's official launch, it was announced that former television celebrity Don Burke had been appointed chairman. [3]

ASIC documents also listed Mike Nahan, the former Executive Director of the IPA, as one of the other founding directors. The documents also listed AEF's registered place of business as the IPA office. (Nahan was ED of the IPA until mid-2005). Pdf copy of ASIC registration - 11kb

In a column by Nahan in the Herald-Sun, he described AEF as "pro-biotechnology, pro-nuclear power, pro-modern farming, pro-economic growth, pro-business and pro-environment." [4]

AEF managed to jump the queue for Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) Status awarded to not for profit charities who’s purpose is to help save the environment. This status was awarded by the Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH) and approved by the Federal Liberal Environment Minister. DGR Status entitles donors to a tax deduction at their marginal rate of tax for every dollar donated. The head of the AEF admitted that it is a group set up to protect timber interests and stop resources being taken away from the industry in an interview on ABC Radio station Triple J's Hack program.

History

The AEF was formally launched on World Environment Day (June 5 2005) in the northern New South Wales town of Tenterfield. "This new group will be vastly different to the established environment organisations that have had the ear of governments for some time. The AEF’s focus will be on making decisions based on science and what is good for both the environment and for people," the group stated in its press release.[5]

The formation of the AEF was first mooted at the 'The Institute of Public Affairs Eureka Forum' organised in December 2004 by the Institute of Public Affairs.

The Australian Environment Foundation was registered by Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC)as a business in February, 2005. Its formation was also announced during the May 2005 Annual conference in Launceston of Timber Communities Australia, a timber industry front group.

AEF was officially launched on World Environment Day, 5th June, 2005. Jennifer Marohasy, who is the IPA's environment director, is a key player. On her blog Marohasy boasted that "The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) has just formed and embraced the following 6 values based on my five principles." [6]

Reporting on the AEF's launch, the Melbourne broadsheet newspaper, 'The Age' reported that Marohasy is the group’s chairwoman. "Dr Marohasy said she acted as the group's leader as an individual and not part of the IPA," the Age reported. [7]

The launch was covered on Michael Duffy's conservative ABC radio show, ‘Counterpoint’ on the 6th of June in a story called ‘Putting People First’. Ironically, this phrase was the name of a (now defunct) wise-use group that operated in the US. The piece is on the ABC website. [8]

via @simonahac, 3 July 2018

According to one of the original AEF directors Max Rheese; AEF and IPA members share common values.

The AEF inaugural board members were drawn from the Institute of Public Affairs, Landholders Institute, Timber Communities Australia and the  Bush Users Group.

Investigation into the conduct of Public Service Commissioner & IPA member could be cut short and closed without findings once he leaves the public service in August

John Lloyd. Image: The Guardian, 4 June 2018

This close to a federal election will Turnbull & Co organise a whitewashing of any Australian Public Service Commission Code of Conduct finding relating to John Richard Lloyd?

The Guardian, 21 June 2018:

The outgoing public service commissioner John Lloyd is being investigated for an alleged breach of the public service code of conduct, in what Labor has called an “unprecedented” move.

Labor has targeted Lloyd in Senate estimates sessions over allegations of favouritism to the right-wing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs, of which he is a longtime member and former director.

At a supplementary session on Thursday, the finance and public administration committee chair, James Paterson, tabled letters showing that the acting merit protection commissioner, Mark Davidson, had announced he intended to conduct an inquiry into Lloyd’s conduct.

The 14 June letter from Davidson said he would investigate an “allegation of a breach of the Australian public service code of conduct”.

Asked why he is being investigated, Lloyd told the committee he would take the question on notice and said he did not want to prejudice the investigation but did not claim public interest immunity.

In June Lloyd announced his retirement effective 8 August but said the decision was not influenced by “recent events”.

He told the committee he resigned after consulting his family after a long working life and denied any government member had sought or canvassed his resignation.

Davidson told the committee there was “no power to continue the inquiry” after Lloyd ceases to be commissioner on 8 August….

At an October estimates session Lloyd was asked about his contact with the IPA, including an email in which he attached a document that he said “highlights some of the more generous agreement provisions applying to APS employees”.

The IPA is a fierce public critic of public service conditions and in December called for 27,000 jobs to be slashed.

At that hearing Lloyd defended his link to the group, rejecting the allegation that giving the information amounted to special access because the information was publicly available in public service enterprise agreements.

In May it was revealed Lloyd had complained about scrutiny of his links to the IPA, writing to the IPA’s executive director, John Roskam, referring to “more publicity for the IPA including page 1 of the Canberra Times thanks to ALP questioning”.

The Canberra Times, 23 June 2018:

Mr Lloyd was a controversial appointee from the moment Tony Abbott gave him the job. Although he is a career bureaucrat, he has long been associated with conservative politics; many of his senior promotions were the result of Coalition governments appointing him directly. As John Howard's building industry watchdog, he took an unashamedly hard line against unions. In his current role, he questioned long-held public service tenets, particularly security of employment, and openly opposed freedom of information law.

The head of the public servants' union, Nadine Flood, is hardly an objective observer. Nonetheless, the tone of her extraordinary farewell to Mr Lloyd, who will resign in August, is a sign of his impact on public administration. Ms Flood said Mr Lloyd had debased his office, misled a Senate inquiry, repeatedly attacked the public service, "used his position to promote his ideological preoccupations" and was unfit for the job.....

...it is deeply worrying that acting merit protection commissioner Mark Davidson took so long to deal with the complaint. The possibility now exists that the ensuing investigation might not conclude before Mr Lloyd leaves his job, by when the investigation, if it is still ongoing, would need to be cancelled.

Lloyd spent almost two hours of last month’s [Senate] hearing refusing to answer whether he was under investigation for his contact with the IPA, at one stage attempting to see if he could claim public interest immunity over the queries.

He later took the question on notice and said he was not the subject of any current inquiries.

The department of the prime minister and cabinet had rejected freedom-of-information requests asking for emails between Lloyd and the IPA, on the grounds that releasing the emails “could reasonably be expected to prejudice the conduct of an investigation of a breach, or possible breach, of the law”.

The Guardian, 4 June 2018:

John Lloyd, the public service commissioner, has announced his resignation just days after a Senate estimates grilling that questioned his independence…

Lloyd spent almost two hours of last month’s [Senate] hearing refusing to answer whether he was under investigation for his contact with the IPA, at one stage attempting to see if he could claim public interest immunity over the queries.

He later took the question on notice and said he was not the subject of any current inquiries.

The department of the prime minister and cabinet had rejected freedom-of-information requests asking for emails between Lloyd and the IPA, on the grounds that releasing the emails “could reasonably be expected to prejudice the conduct of an investigation of a breach, or possible breach, of the law”.

OUR ABC: Will voters be foolish enough to believe Turnbull Government protestations of innocence?

The Liberal Party of Australia Federal Council comprises 14 delegates from each State and the ACT - the State / Territory President, the State / Territory Parliamentary Leader, the President of the Young Liberal Movement, the President / Chairman of the Women’s Council and 10 other delegates.

According to the Liberal Party website; It is the Organisational wing’s highest forum for debating Federal policies. Views of the Federal Council are not binding on the Parliamentary party, but do carry considerable weight as the stated position of the organisation on a range of policy issues.

More than 100 Liberal Party MPs, senators and party members were in Sydney on 16 June 2018 for the party’s 60^th annual federal council which is expected to be the last one before the next federal election.

Here are some of the smiling faces at the event readers might recognise.

Twitter: A bevy of Liberal ministers: Sen. Mitch Fifield, Sen. Mathias Cormann, Julie Bishop MP & Malcolm Turnbull MP

The Young Liberals put forward the motion “That federal council calls for the full privatisation of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, except for services into regional areas that are not commercially viable” and on a more than 2 to 1 show of hands the council voted in favour this motion.

Fairfax media snapshot of ABC privatisation vote

Council delegate Mitchell Collier, federal vice president of the Young Liberals, asserted there was no economic case to keep the broadcaster in public hands.

He stated to the meeting that; “There are several ways we could privatise the ABC – we could sell it to a media mogul, a media organisation, the government could sell it on the stock market….Privatising it would save the federal budget $1 billion a year, could pay off debt and would enhance, not diminish, the Australian media landscape.”

At the end of the motion debate Mitch Fifield reluctantly got to his feet at the urging of the Chair to offer “comments and observations” but did not condemn the idea of privatisation or oppose the motion outright.

As the vote was on a show of hands only with no official count taken there is no record of how Fifield voted.

Four members of the party’s federal executive voted in favour of the call for privatisation -  Federal Liberal vice-presidents Karina Okotel and Trish Worth, Young Liberal president Josh Manuatu and vice president Mitchell Collier who moved the motion. Incoming Federal Liberal vice-president NSW member Teena McQueen also voted for privatisation.

The federal council also voted in favour of an efficiency review of the SBS network.

After the vote became public two Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) members made statements to the media.

RMIT University professor and IPA Senior Research Fellow Sinclair Davidson said privatisation of the ABC should be the “default” Coalition policy as the Liberals were the party of small government which supported private enterprise.

He also told Sky News that ‘Selling the ABC to Gina Rinehart would be magnificent’

IPA research fellow Chris Berg said the preferred option would be for ownership to be transferred to ABC staff or Australian taxpayers.

The Australian Minister for Communications and yet another IPA member, Senator Mitch Fifield, who has previously stated that there is “merit in the proposal to privatise the ABC is currently trying to hose down alarm in the national electorate over that federal council vote.

His claims that the Turnbull Government supports the Australian public broadcaster and denies it has any intention of selling off the ABC.

Given past behaviour of the Abbott and Turnbull governments, the belligerence displayed towards the ABC and the stable from which Fifield comes, I don’t believe a word of his denial.

Just as the Prime Minister's denial is not one on which I would depend.

Where the Trump Regime goes the far-right in Australia's Turnbull Government are sure to follow

Emboldened by the Heartland Institute's capture of the US Trump Government, I suspect that Australia will see a renewed push by one of the compatriots of this American lobby group  - the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) - to further wind back federal and state environmental protections.

The IPA already has an uncomfortably close relationship with the Turnbull Government as a number of its members are within its ranks.

This is the current state of play in the United States.

DeSmog Blog, 29 May 2018:

A lawsuit filed in March by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Environmental Defense Fund has revealed new levels of coordination between Scott Pruitt's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the climate science-denying think tank the Heartland Institute.

The EPA had repeatedly failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests by the two groups, which resulted in the lawsuit and subsequent release of the email communications.

However, both the EPA and the Heartland Institute have strongly defended their actions revealed by the newly released emails. EPA spokesperson Lincoln Ferguson told the Associated Press that communications with the Heartland Institute helped “to ensure the public is informed” and that this relationship “… demonstrates the agency’s dedication to advancing President Trump’s agenda of environmental stewardship and regulatory certainty.”

The current head of the Heartland Institute is former Congressman Tim Huelskamp who also was quick to defend the relationship.

“Of course The Heartland Institute has been working with EPA on policy and personnel decisions,” Tim Huelskamp said in a statement to AP. “They recognized us as the pre-eminent organization opposing the radical climate alarmism agenda and instead promoting sound science and policy.”

In March Huelskamp wrote a piece in The Hill titled “Scott Pruitt is leading the EPA toward greatness,” in which he made it quite clear that the reason for this greatness was that “Trump and Pruitt share an understanding that climate change is not a significant threat to the prosperity and health of Americans.”

While in Congress, Huelskamp’s top donor was Koch Industries, the massive petrochemical empire owned by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David.

However, this latest revelation is unlikely to derail Pruitt’s career at the EPA. Pruitt is currently the subject of at least ten investigations. At a scathing hearing in April, he was told by one Congressman that “you are unfit to hold public office and undeserving of the public trust.”

Still, Pruitt remains the embattled chief of the nation's top environmental agency under Trump, and, perhaps not surprisingly, President Donald Trump has been supportive of Pruitt……

Like his boss, Pruitt is quick to blame the media for his problems.

“Much of what has been targeted towards me and my team, has been half-truths, or at best stories that have been so twisted they do not resemble reality,” Pruitt said in his opening remarks to Congress during the April hearing. “I'm here and I welcome the chance to be here to set the record straight in these areas. But let's have no illusions about what's really going on here.”….

Supported by funding from the Koch network, Heartland has been actively spreading disinformation about climate science for years.

What the latest EPA emails reveal is the extent which these Koch-funded climate deniers are now in direct communication with the EPA and helping influence policy. 

One email from John Konkus, EPA’s deputy associate administrator for public affairs, assures Heartland's then-president Joseph Bast that “If you send a list, we will make sure an invitation is sent.”

The list refers to Heartland’s recommendations for economists and scientists that the EPA would invite to a public hearing on science standards. Under Trump and Pruitt, climate science deniers are now hand-picking who advises the EPA on climate change science….

Read the full blog post here.

BACKGROUND

 DeSmog Blog, undated:

May 16 - 18, 2010

The Institute of Public Affairs was a cosponsor (PDF) of the Heartland Institute's Fourth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC4). [28]

DeSmogBlog concluded 19 of the 65 sponsors (including Heartland itself) had received a total of over $40 million in funding since 1985 from ExxonMobil (who funded 13 of the organizations), and/or Koch Industries family foundations (funded 10 organizations) and/or the Scaife family foundations (funded 10 organizations). [29]

October 1, 2010

Together, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the Property Rights Alliance, and the Institute of Public Affairs sponsored the Heartland Institute's Fifth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC5) in Sydney, Australia. [30]

The Conversation, 6 June 2016:

A group of prominent Melbourne businessmen founded the IPA in 1943 in the wake of the United Australia Party-Country Party coalition’s devastating election loss.

Inaugural chairman G.J. Coles (founder of the Coles supermarket chain) outlined the IPA’s approach. He said it:

… did not wish to be directly involved in politics, but it wanted to help create a modern political faith, which would be constructive and progressive and which would receive a large measure of public support.

Concerned the Labor Party was leading Australia down a path of central planning and socialism, the IPA set out to develop and promote an alternative vision. To that end it published a 70-page pamphlet titled Looking Forward: “a post-war policy for Australian industry”.

One person paying close attention was Robert Menzies, who in 1944 described the pamphlet as:

… the finest statement of basic political and economic problems made in Australia for many years.

Many of the policies outlined in Looking Forward were incorporated into the platform of the Liberal Party, founded the following year.

Though the IPA and the Liberal Party were characterised in their early decades by a mildly Keynesian, interventionist approach to the economy, since the 1980s both have switched to a more hardline neoliberal philosophy – embracing free markets, lower taxes and trickle-down economics.

Shared personnel

David and Rod Kemp, sons of the IPA’s founder and driving force C.D. “Ref” Kemp, became key figures in both the IPA and the Liberal Party.

David wrote his honours thesis on the founding of the IPA, then combined an academic career with stints advising Malcolm Fraser before entering parliament in 1990. Rod took over and revitalised the IPA in 1982 before he was elected to the Senate, also in 1990. Both were ministers in the Howard government.

Former Liberal MP and leading economic “dry” John Hyde ran the IPA from 1991 to 1995, before being replaced by Mike Nahan, who is now treasurer in the Western Australian Liberal government....

When Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt was found to have breached Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in 2011, the IPA was outraged and immediately launched a campaign to repeal the offending section.

A full-page advertisement was taken out in The Australian. It included the names of senior Liberals such as Jamie Briggs, Michaelia Cash, Mathias Cormann, Mitch Fifield, Nick Minchin and Andrew Robb.

Sometimes it is hard to believe how bone-achingly stupid governments can be…… Part One

Before the Abbott Coalition Government appointed John Lloyd Australian Public Service Commissioner in 2014 he was Director, Workplace Relations and Productivity at the far-right pressure group, the Institute for Public Affairs - so this was all but inevitable....

The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 May 2018:

The Prime Minister's department has refused to release emails relating to the public service commissioner John Lloyd and a right-wing think tank, saying they could prejudice an investigation into a possible breach of the law.

Mr Lloyd has previously rejected suggestions he gave special access and research to the Institute of Public Affairs after Labor senators last year raised an email he sent to a member of the group with an attachment showing what he described as "generous" provisions in public service enterprise agreements.

A freedom of information request sought emails held by Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Martin Parkinson mentioning Mr Lloyd and the IPA, and dated from October 23, after senators referred to the email in a Senate estimates hearing.

The department responded to the request last month by refusing to release two emails in Dr Parkinson's inbox, dated December 20 and December 22.

"I am satisfied that disclosure secretary Peter Rush wrote.

Releasing the documents could also "reasonably be expected to prejudice the impartial adjudication of a particular case", Mr Rush said.

One document is 30 pages long, and another is five pages.

The department and the Australian Public Service Commission have refused to answer repeated questions from Fairfax Media asking who is under investigation, who is conducting the probe, and the matters being investigated.

"The department has no comment," Prime Minister and Cabinet said in two separate statements.

The APS commission said it would not comment "on speculation about any investigation".

The issue of an investigation is still dogging John Lloyd and was addressed at a Finance And Public Administration Legislation Committee Estimates hearing on 21 May 2018, where at 1:57pm Lloyd went from professing unfamiliarity with a government act relevant to his current situation to this…….

Fairfax Media journalist tweeting about Senate Estimates hearing, 21 May 2018:

This is awkward. Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd is flat out refusing to say whether he is under investigation over his relationship with the IPA #estimates

— Michael Koziol (@michaelkoziol) May 21, 2018

A verbatim exchange-
McAllister: Are you under investigation for breaking the law?
Lloyd: I’ll take that on notice #estimates

— Michael Koziol (@michaelkoziol) May 21, 2018

Yes, the Federal Coalition Government really opted for a member of the brains trust with  the appointment of John Lloyd.

It only took five little words....

Some people should never be allowed near a public discussion and Institute for Public Affairs Deputy Director John Roskam is one of them.

This was John as a ABC TV Q&A panel guest on Monday 23 April 2018.

Working hard makes you free. 
Ouch!

Memory immediately flies back to... 

Arbeit macht frei

Work sets you free.

A phrase forever linked to Nazi ideology.