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Barnaby Joyce lobbied PM Turnbull to support Rinehart

Case for Federal ICAC
Conflicts of Interest | Deceptive Conduct | QED | The Nationals
The Nationals Party

Barnaby Joyce lobbied PM Turnbull to support Rinehart

April 2017

Joyce lobbied Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to support Gina Rinehart’s National Agriculture Day and then wrote to her boasting about his role, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Joyce later received a $40,000 personal cheque from the billionaire.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws reportedly show Mr Joyce wrote a personal letter to Mrs Rinehart in April 2017. He wrote that he “had made a direct representation to the Prime Minister expressing my strong support for this [National Agricultural and Related Industries Day] proposal.”

Two months later in June 2017, Mr Joyce’s Department of Agriculture gave $60,000 to the National Farmers’ Federation. The Day was staged in November that year.

The National Farmers’ Federation scripted Mr Joyce’s promotional video for the day, which he then read verbatim.

Joyce later returned the cheque following a public backlash.

What's a rort?

Conflicts of Interest

Redirecting funding to pet hobbies; offering jobs to the boys without a proper tender process; secretly bankrolling candidates in elections; taking up private sector jobs in apparent breach of parliament’s code of ethics, the list goes on.

Deceptive Conduct

Claiming that greenhouse gas emissions have gone down when the facts clearly show otherwise; breaking the law on responding to FoI requests; reneging on promised legislation; claiming credit for legislation that doesn’t exist; accepting donations that breach rules. You get the drift of what behaviour this category captures.

Election Rorts

In the months before the last election, the Government spent hundreds of millions of dollars of Australian taxpayers’ money on grants for sports, community safety, rural development programs and more. Many of these grants were disproportionally awarded to marginal seats, with limited oversight and even less accountability.

Dubious Travel Claims

Ministerial business that just happens to coincide with a grand final or a concert; electorate business that must be conducted in prime tourist locations, or at the same time as party fundraisers. All above board, maybe, but does it really pass the pub test? Or does it just reinforce the fact that politicians take the public for mugs?

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