We see which way the stream of
time doth run
And are enforced from our most
quiet there
By the rough torrent of
occasion
Henry IV Part 2, Act four,
Scene one.
Next week will see the Additional Estimates 2025/26
Hearings. NIAA and the four NT Land Councils will appear on Monday, while the
other PM&C Indigenous portfolio bodies will appear on Tuesday. The current
program suggests that the NT Aboriginal Investment Corporation, otherwise known
as Aboriginal Investment NT (AINT) has not been called to appear.
I previously noted (link
here) that neither the ALC, nor the AINT and an associated Trust entity,
have lodged their 2025 Annual Reports which were due by end October 2025. I
subsequently updated that earlier post to report that both entities had been
granted an extension to the end of November by the Minister. That extension
appears to have been further extended to the end of February. The problem
appears to relate to the inability of the ANAO to finalise its audits of these
entities; see the relevant correspondence from each entity dated 29 November
which was then tabled in Parliament (link
here and link
here).
Following the early December Supplementary Senate Estimates
hearings of the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for the
Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio, Senator David Pocock lodged a series of
questions relating to the ongoing accountability vacuum surrounding Groote
Eylandt and the operations of the Anindilyakwa Land Council (ALC) and related
entities in receipt of section 64(3) royalty equivalent payments sourced from
the Aboriginals Benefit Account managed by NIAA.
Answers to those questions have now been tabled:
·
The first, Question # NIAA1817 related
to the ALC and the termination of the former CEO (link
here).
·
The second, Question # NIAA 1818 related
to the financial statements of the Anindilyakwa Advancement Aboriginal
Corporation (AAAC) (link
here).
·
The third, Question # NIAA1819 related
to Aboriginal land rights and regulatory responsibilities (link
here).
I don’t propose to summarise the detailed questions nor the
answers, so suggest interested readers have a look for themselves. In many
respects, the significance of the information provided is in the additional
context that it provides rather than in any specific revelations. They provide
more pieces in the extensive and complex jigsaw puzzle that is emanating from
Groote and reverberating well beyond. For these reasons, and given my
longstanding interest in these issues both in their own rights, but also as a
microcosm of the wider risks, flaws, and accountability gaps that exist across
the Indigenous policy domain, I feel it is incumbent on me to at least point
out some of the more salient implications.
In relation to Q#1817, the ALC has very helpfully
provided a copy of the letter sent to the ALC Board by the then CEO on 28
September 2024. In the letter, the CEO identified the need to resolve the
perceived conflict of interest issue identified in the BellchambersBarrett
review (link
here) which was finalised in August 2024 as the instigation for his
proposal. The review noted (at page 4)
Some conflicts, perceived or
actual, are unlikely to be able to be effectively managed, an example being the
current dual remunerated CEO positions for ALC and Winchelsea Mining Pty Ltd,
noting
·
a public official role (ALC CEO) in
comparison to a commercial activity management role (Winchelsea Mining CEO),
·
time and attention needed for both roles,
and
·
the ALC makes funding decisions and
Winchelsea Mining Pty Ltd is a beneficiary of ALC funding decisions
One intriguing aspect of this imbroglio is that the then
Chair of the ALC was in the same conflicted position as Mr Hewitt but was not
identified in the Bellchambers report and appears not to have been under the
same pressure to resolve his position. This gap reflects the lack of
substantive independence in that report.
It is clear that the termination was not instigated by the
Board, but what is less clear is whether there was informal pressure on the CEO
to resolve the issues from the Minister or NIAA. Certainly, the tone of the
letter is entirely equivocal on the part of the CEO. What adds to the
likelihood of such an interpretation is the fact that the NIAA injected
themselves into the ALC Board consideration, while leaving no trail of file
notes nor written briefing for the minister or her office. The fact that the ALC
board meeting occurred in the same week as the National Anti-Corruption
Commission (NACC) visited Groote merely adds weight to the suggestion that
there may have been a sense of panic on the part of the minister about the
ongoing tenure of the CEO.
It would be useful if the Estimates Committee
was to ask the Minister whether she or her representatives was
involved in any communication with Mr Hewitt regarding his tenure prior to the
preparation of his correspondence to the ALC in September 2024.
The answers to sub-questions (a), (b) and (c) are intriguing.
They list a number of corporations which the ALC provides assistance to in
accordance with section 23(1)(ea) of the ALRA, including the various service
agreements put in place. However, the list does not include AAAC (which owns
the majority stake in Winchelsea mining) and GHAC (which controls and owns the
various developments at Little Paradise. As was previously reported to the Senate,
these two corporations received $70m in s.64(3) payments directed to the preparation
for the Winchelsea mine from the ALC. The former CEO and his spouse provided
assistance in person to both these corporations (and it seems likely that ALC
staff assisted them in multiple ways) but there appears not to have been a
formal decision to assist them by the ALC. See also the last two paragraphs of
the answer (page 3 of 23).
The ALC answer to the sub-question at paragraph (f) is
entirely inadequate as they fail to answer the question asked and instead
provide a detailed workplan (going forward) relating to the revised Finance
Audit and Risk Committee. One might surmise that the previous Audit and Risk
Committee (which was itself conflicted) did not undertake any oversight of the
ALC’s activities under section 23(1)(ea). In relation to the issue of budget
cover, while the answer confirms that the ALC received no additional section
64(1) funding form the ABA to cover the termination payment, they do not inform
us whether the Minister approved the expenditure of the termination payment as
was suggested might be required in a previously released NIAA document.
In relation to Q#NIAA 1818, the answer provided
confirms that the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations is pursuing AAAC for its
failure to lodge its financial statements in 2024 and 2025, and the corporation
is due to appear in a Darwin court on 17 February ‘for failure to meet its
reporting obligations’. Given that the AAAC is the owner of 70 percent of
Winchelsea Mining, this seems to be a rather ominous development for the future
prospects of the company and the mine. I can’t help noting that the failure to
lodge financial statements overlaps substantially with the departure of Mr
Hewitt and Ms Liu from their involvement on Groote. I have long held the view
that the ALC exerted effective control over key organisations operating on
Groote. This is further anecdotal evidence consistent with (but not irrefutable
evidence of) that view. The recent decision of the Registrar to initiate a
financial investigation into GHAC, while providing no information or background
to that decision, serves to reinforce this perspective.
It would be useful if the Estimates Committee was
to seek further information from ORIC into both these developments,
including the background to and terms of reference for the GHAC review and ORIC’s
strategy beyond achieving a court conviction against AAAC and its Directors.
In relation to Q#NIAA 1819, Senator Pocock’s
question in effect seeks to understand the extent to which the NIAA (and by
implication the Minister) has focussed on identifying and managing the
financial risks involved in the administration of the Aboriginals Benefit
Account (ABA). The answer provided has two levels.
The first level is to
seek to deflect responsibility with the statement in the first paragraph which states:
The Aboriginal Land Rights
(Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) does not establish a regulatory
relationship between the NIAA and Land Councils established under that Act.
The ALRA provides the Minister with specified powers and the NIAA supports the
Minister in the exercise of these powers, including through the exercise of
certain Ministerial powers and functions under delegation [emphasis
added].
The first sentence verges on being misleading and the paragraph
is an exercise in deflection. The reality is that the Minister has numerous decision-making
responsibilities under the ALRA in relation to land councils and other matters,
including approval of budgets, allocation of funding amounts, approval of the
selection process of land councils, and much more besides. There are around 90 provisions
in the ALRA that provide for Ministerial decisions or approvals in relation ot
land council matters. The NIAA is the organisational entity within the PMC
portfolio which provides technical and policy advice to the Minister in
relation to those responsibilities. Further, the NIAA administers the Aboriginals
Benefit Account (controlled by Minister) which is the source of virtually all funding
for the NT land councils. There is a
requirement for stand alone ABA financial statements and these are published
each year an appendix to the NIAA Annual Report (link
here). The NIAA directly administer the ABA and itself makes decisions
relating to its financial management and the investment of funds (see for
example the following extract from the ABA Annual Report for 2024-25 (page
186):
The investment objective of
the NIAA as administrators for the ABA is to ensure that the ABA
complies with legislative obligations under the PGPA Act and the ALRA, and
that the ABA maintains and preserves its capital base [emphasis
added].
The claim that the NIAA has no regulatory role vis a vis
the land councils, and the ALC in particular, does not accord with the fact that the NIAA
attended the ALC meeting which terminated the former CEO, commissioned the Bellchambers
Review subsequent to the critical ANAO report in 2023, and has been directly
involved in the implementation of the governance conditions imposed by the Minister
in late 2024.
The second level of
the answer is the recounting of the various minutes of the NIAA Audit and Risk
Committee over the five years. These record the ARC consideration the financial
statements for the ABA (as part of the broader annual finalisation process for
the NIAA financial statements). These ARC considerations are high level and for
the most part are formalities. The answer provides no information in relation
to any discussion by the Risk and Operations Committee, and we can only assume
that they have not in the last five years considered risks in relation to the ABA
and the operation of land councils. The answer does mention a discussion in the
ARC on 30 August 2025 where the minutes state (according to the answer provided
to Senator Pocock):
The Financial Statements for
ABA are audited; however, the Committee does not receive regular reports as
part of the CFO report. The ABA is not an entity but is required under
provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act to publish a set of financial statements.
Once payments are made by the NIAA to the various Land Councils and to
the Aboriginal Investment NT agency the responsibility for accountability
and oversight transfers to those PGPA entities. There are some legacy
grants which continue to be paid from ABA and administered by NIAA.
Again, we have the denial of responsibility discussed
above. NIAA can attempt to dance on a semantic and legal pinhead, but the
political and policy reality is that under the Westminster principles, the
Minister is responsible, and the NIAA is the Minister’s primary adviser on her legislative
and policy responsibilities. Those responsibilities include the ABA and the
ALRA, and the ALC and ORIC.
For the NIAA to assert that they have no oversight responsibilities
over the land councils when the Minister clearly does have those responsibilities
is not only in my view incorrect but is of itself a damning indictment of how
the wide-ranging imbroglio and fiasco on Groote Eylandt was allowed to progressively
emerge and run unimpeded for over five years.
6 February 2026
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