New documents reveal the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption has asked detailed questions about a $107,000 grant made by the former deputy premier, John Barilaro, to Monaro Farming Systems, a company linked to the family of federal cabinet minister Angus Taylor.
The grant was paid out of Local Land Services funds – part of Barilaro’s then portfolio of regional NSW – in 2018, and was announced by the deputy premier.
It was used by MFS to fund a pilot project on alternative ways to identify native grasses instead of the method used under federal environmental legislation.
The work has been used by the Taylors, who are major landholders in the Monaro, and others to lobby for changes to the federal government’s listing of native temperate grasslands as critically endangered.
In line with its policy, Icac refused to confirm or deny if it was investigating the grant.
The $107,000 grant has been controversial because, as the Guardian has previously reported, there appears to be little paperwork to support the grant and the then chairman of MFS, Richard Taylor, thanked Barilaro for it in MFS’s annual report.
At the time of the grant, Jam Land, a company in which both federal energy minister Angus Taylor and his brother Richard had an interest, was under investigation by the federal Department of Environment for illegally spraying native grasslands at Corrowong.
Guardian Australia has reported extensively on how Angus Taylor met with senior bureaucrats in the federal Department of Environment soon after the investigation into Jam Land started. Taylor says he met only for briefings on the grassland protections and did not raise the investigation into his family’s company.
Jam Land has now been ordered to remediate the property, but is appealing against the ruling in the federal court.
Icac’s interest in the grant is revealed in a new document that was made public last week under a call for papers by the upper house of NSW parliament, after Greens MP David Shoebridge successfully contested a claim for privilege.
Marked “sensitive: NSW cabinet”, the briefing note reveals that in April last year, the corruption watchdog sent an official letter to LLS “pertaining to the funding provided to Monaro Farming Systems to undertake the Grasslands Pilot study”.
“LLS provided a written response, answering all queries and supplied information as requested,” the document says. “As advised by Icac this response is not to be made public under any circumstances as it may prejudice investigations should Icac deem them necessary.”
Another document, also released last week, reveals another $50,000 grant to MFS was the subject of an internal probity review by the director of audit and investigations in Barilaro’s former department.
This followed revelations in estimates last June that a senior unnamed bureaucrat in the Department of Primary Industry, part of Barilaro’s portfolio, had written a note to file querying whether the grant was “ethical” and posing the question: “Is it bribery?”. The bureaucrat was also concerned the money was being dressed up as a contract for services when it was really a grant.
A chat note also tabled in estimates recorded the deputy director general, Kate Lorimer-Ward telling a bureaucrat “we have been directed by the deputy premier to provide them [MFS] with $50K”, and they should keep the contract “high level and vague”.
However, the probity report reveals Lorimer-Ward has now described her previous claim of a direction by the deputy premier as “factually incorrect” and “unwarranted” and that there was no such direction. She told the investigators the comment was motivated by “having dropped the ball” on drafting the MFS contract and trying to speed up progress.
This appears to have satisfied internal investigators that there was “no evidence of corrupt conduct” although it sent the report to Icac as a courtesy.
It did, however, find numerous problems with the department’s processes. These included that a DPI officer is a board member on MFS, but no record had been logged in the department’s conflict of interest register.
The bureaucrat was not involved in allocating the grant.
It also found a lack of documentation around the contract with MFS. There was no written quote from MFS to deliver the services, no clear specification of what would be done under the contract, it was not registered with the procurement team, and there was no documentation as to whether the contract was assessed as value for money.
Nonetheless, the probity auditor cleared the grant.
“It is no wonder the Coalition tried so hard to hide this probity report, it basically accepts that white is black and black is white in order to get the government off the hook,” Shoebridge said.
“I’m glad that these records also show that Icac is reviewing it because the department reviewing itself has clearly failed.
“Monaro Farming systems has now had almost $800,000 from the NSW government over the last decade and it’s hard to understand why they keep winning these grants.
LLS declined to comment on Icac’s involvement.
It did however confirm that it had paid $107,000 to MFS for a project known as “Monaro Grasslands Best Management Practices” as well as two grants in Walgett.
“It is understood that the reports from these projects provided information on the application of land management policy in these two regions,” a spokesperson said.
Comment was sought from Barilaro and from MFS but neither responded by the deadline.
Monaro Farming Systems is an agricultural cooperative that was founded by Richard Taylor. It undertakes work for a group of graziers in the Monaro region of NSW, including scientific studies and lobbying.
