6 THE NATION
AUSE03Z01MA - V1
THE AUSTRALIAN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2015
theaustralian.com.au
Ngarluma Corp legal
bill $1.5m in two years
EXCLUSIVE
ANDREW BURRELL
THE chief executive of one of the
Pilbara’s biggest Aboriginal
corporations is on extended leave
amid a forensic audit into the
group’s finances and allegations of
excessive spending and poor
governance.
Ngarluma Aboriginal Corp
has received tens of millions of
dollars a year from native title
deals in the Pilbara — including a
$25 million upfront payment
from mining giant Rio Tinto in
2011 — but there are claims the
windfall has been grossly
mismanaged.
Ngarluma traditional owners
live mainly in and around the
town of Roebourne, one of the
most impoverished regions in
Australia despite its proximity to
the massive iron ore operations of
the Pilbara.
The corporation’s chief
executive, Paul Stenson, has been
off work since several new
directors were elected in late
November, ending the reign of a
board seen as sympathetic to the
non-indigenous chief executive.
Mr Stenson, who is on a salary
package of about $300,000 a
year, remains employed pending
the result of the investigation.
He told The Australian he was
taking owed leave and he hoped
to return to work if the board
wanted him to remain as chief
executive. “I am not 100 per cent
sure of what my future is,” he said.
Divisions in the Ngarluma
community boiled over late in
2013 when Mr Stenson pursued
an expensive legal action to
remove the board of the
independent trust company —
known as Ngarluma Tharndu
Karrungu Maya Ltd (NTKML) —
that oversaw and approved
corporation spending.
The ousted board of NTKML
included the former Aboriginal
magistrate Sue Gordon and the
respected Perth businessman
Tony Usher.
The Australian has obtained a
raft of documents that detail
concerns, raised several times by
the NTKML board, about
corporation executives allegedly
spending money without
authorisation, including payment
of $300,000 to refurbish an office.
Mr Usher said yesterday that
he had “serious” concerns over
the corporation’s governance
standards under Mr Stenson.
He claimed that Mr Stenson
had wanted the NTKML board
removed because it had raised
questions about corporation
spending. “They challenged us
because we wouldn’t allow them
to continue to spend the money
the way they wanted to spend it,”
he said.
An analysis of the
corporation’s accounts reveals it
spent $1.5m on legal fees during
the past two years, which equates
to almost 10 per cent of the
revenue it received in that period.
Mr Stenson said the legal bill
had included the cost of flying
lawyers — including highly-paid
special counsel — from Brisbane
to Perth for the West Australian
Supreme Court case against the
former NTKML board.
One Ngarluma insider said the
corporation regularly handed out
money to Aboriginal people who
could not pay their phone bills, as
well as for other expenses that
had not been formally approved.
“This is what happens when
you hand over $25m,” he said. “It
is privatised welfare.”
Mr Stenson defended his
performance, saying he had met
or exceeded all his key
performance indicators as part of
two performance reviews.
He said the corporation had a
surplus of $800,000 last financial
year and had been given a “clean
bill of health” by Perpetual.
Federal regulator the Office
of the Registrar of Indigenous
Corporations also cleared it of
any serious governance issues
last year.
However, some directors
are privately scathing of ORIC’s
inaction.
The corporation declined
to comment, but it confirmed
that a forensic audit was being
carried out.
Bid to evict crusader
EXCLUSIVE
SONIA KOHLBACHER
THE West Australian
government’s three-strikes rule
for public housing tenants is
again under the spotlight as it
pursues a respected Aboriginal
elder, who has spent decades
finding housing for people living
on Perth’s streets, through the
courts to have her evicted.
Marie Thorne, who has been
recognised by NAIDOC and
local governments for her
volunteer work in the housing
sector, said she would live on the
streets if the court granted the
West Australian Department of
Housing permission to remove
her from the home in Perth’s
southern suburbs.
Ms Thorne, 78, has lived in
the home near Fremantle for
28 years, and was notified by the
department last year that her
tenancy would be terminated
after visitors to her home were
involved in a “violent altercation”
on her street last November that
left one man in hospital with
serious injuries. The department
said a relative of Ms Thorne had
been charged by WA police with
going armed in public so as to
cause terror, grievous bodily
harm, driving while suspended
and wounding.
The department’s service
deliveries acting general
manager, Greg Cash, claims Ms
Thorne consistently failed to
control the behaviour of her
visitors, which had led to more
than 30 complaints made against
her. Ms Thorne received one
strike in March 2012, another in
May 2013.
Mr Cash said 523 tenants had
been evicted since the Barnett
government introduced the
three-strikes policy in May 2011.
He said Ms Thorne had
refused offers of a smaller house,
a claim she said was false. Ms
Thorne said she should not be
evicted because she was not
involved in the November
incident and it did not occur on
her property. She said she was
not offered alternative housing,
nor had she received previous
warnings from the department.
Elders brace for APY showdown
EXCLUSIVE
MICHAEL OWEN
A SHOWDOWN for control of
South Australia’s troubled indigenous lands looms today with
elders announcing an extraordinary general meeting to coincide
with a gathering of the region’s
executive board, amid ongoing
concerns over governance and
alleged maladministration.
This comes as lawyers for former APY general manager Bruce
Deans prepare on Friday to seek in
the Supreme Court a trial date for
a judicial review of his sudden
sacking on October 15 last year by
the APY executive. The sacking —
less than five months after Mr
Deans was appointed promising
“sound fiscal propriety” — has
sparked an unprecedented period
of turmoil for the remote region of
more than 100,000sq km in the
state’s northwest.
In correspondence obtained by
The Australian, the lands’ Council
of Elders on February 6 wrote to
the board and to interim APY general manager Lesley Johns and
director Rex Tjami requesting an
EGM “be held at the next executive meeting” as stipulated under
the APY Act.
Council of Elders spokesman
George Kenmore said that more
than 40 elders and other younger
Anangu wanted new APY chairman Owen Burton, revealed by
The Australian this month to be a
convicted criminal, to be removed
along with other office bearers.
“The APY Council of Elders is
made up of real people who have
real concerns for the future of APY
and Anangu. These people have
rights,” Mr Kenmore said.
He said that Anangu under the
current regime were forbidden
access to minutes of executive
meetings, and banned from taking
notes at meetings.
“Non-Anangu are in complete
control of the executive.”
However, Ms Johns, a former
consultant to the APY who was
reappointed interim general man-
ager on the day Mr Deans was
sacked, said that the “so-called”
Council of Elders was not recognised by the APY board and “have
no authority on the lands”.
“An extraordinary general
meeting has not been requested
nor called,” Ms Johns said. “The
executive meeting is being held on
February 18 with a special general
meeting on February 19.
“To the best of my knowledge,
no requests for an EGM have been
made to the board. APY is complying with the act.”
Mr Kenmore said emailed correspondence proved a request had
been made. “The request was
made and an executive meeting
has been called and an EGM can
take place,” he said. “APY will definitely be in breach of the act if it
tries to disallow the EGM.”
The APY executive has claimed
that the “only body representing
the elders in the region” is the
APY’s own law and culture committee.
“This is the group recognised
by the democratically elected APY
executive board and by the South
Australian government,” it has
claimed.
South Australia’s new Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Kyam Maher,
refused to back APY’s claims.
Mr Maher said the looming dispute over control of management
of the lands was “an internal matter for the APY executive”.
Freedom more than just a word for riders
NATASHA ROBINSON
JUST over 50 years ago, at Sydney
University’s sprawling inner-city
campus, 19-year-old science student Brian Aarons was chatting
with a third-year arts student
called Charles Perkins.
The civil rights movement in
the US had captured the imagination of Australian university students, who were protesting for
equality for African Americans,
but Perkins was energised about
discrimination much closer to
home.
“So, are we going to have a
Freedom Ride?” Perkins said.
And so it began.
This morning in Sydney, Mr
Aarons will step on board a bus
with Perkins’s daughter, Rachel,
and several original Freedom
Riders, to retrace the February
1965 path of a bus hired by a
group of 29 students who called
themselves Student Action for
Aborigines.
The 1965 Freedom Ride that
travelled through Dubbo, Walgett,
Gulargambone, Moree, Bowraville and Kempsey in northwest
and coastal NSW exposed the
reality of racial segregation in
1960s Australia, where Aboriginal
people were denied service in bars,
treated at separate wards in some
hospitals, schooled at mission
schools and barred from trying on
dresses in boutiques.
In Moree, in northwest NSW,
Aboriginal children were forbidden from swimming at the town’s
pool outside of school hours. It was
a ban that one alderman, Robert
Brown, fought hard to overturn.
Aboriginal people in Moree are
hoping Mr Brown, regarded as a
civil rights hero, will turn up for the
Freedom Ride commemorations
this week, but so far he has been
uncontactable.
“What was revealed during the
Freedom Ride was a very dark side
of the nation’s character and
psyche,” Mr Aarons said. “Even we
who knew what it was that we
were setting out to expose and
protest against were shocked and
surprised by the extent of it.”
The towns that in 1965 greeted
the Freedom Riders with hostility,
notably Moree and Walgett, this
week have been commemorating
the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights tour.
Moree Mayor Katrina Humphries said the town did not shy
away from its troubled history of
race relations. When the colour
bar at Moree’s public baths was
“However, both my department and I are keen to work
with all Anangu to ensure good
governance across the APY
Lands,” he said.
South Australian taxpayers last
financial year provided more than
$2 million for the 2500 people living on the lands.
The region also receives commonwealth and local government
funding.
Mr Maher has vowed to continue state Labor’s controversial
governance reform.
He has warned he is prepared
to use new powers, rushed through
parliament in December, to suspend the APY executive and appoint an administrator.
AHRC
steps in
to race
test case
EXCLUSIVE
MATTHEW DENHOLM
PHOTOS: JOHN FEDER, PAT HEALEY
Rachel Perkins and Brian Aarons in Sydney yesterday and, below, the freedom riders in Wellington in NSW in 1965
Royalists recognise
need to change
Constitution
“might happen” on the 50th
anniversary of the successful
1967 Aboriginal referendum —
May 27, 2017.
“That would be a richly
symbolic time to complete our
Constitution,” he said.
“It is more important to get
this right than to try to rush it
through.”
ACM national convenor
David Flint last year responded
to Mr Abbott’s appeal by asking
him to involve the public “from
the beginning”.
“We have listened and are
listening to your call for us to
join you in achieving
constitutional recognition for
our indigenous people,’’
Professor Flint said.
ACM’s considered position
has now been submitted to the
parliamentary committee
looking at the referendum
process for recognition.
The submission notes that
Bill Shorten has argued publicly
that “a constitutional
convention offers one
important, constructive way to
ensure that more voices are
heard”.
Protection Act and people’s lives
being controlled, and now it’s a
very different situation,” she said.
“But some of those social markers
are still the same or similar.
“In lots of ways some things
have changed and some things
have remained the same.”
The Freedom Ride re-enactment bus will arrive in Dubbo in
northwest NSW today and travel
on to Walgett tomorrow.
Musicians Paul Kelly and Troy
Cassar-Daley, who will perform
free concerts in the towns, will also
be on board.
Continued from Page 1
challenged by the students, the
council sought to enforce an ordinance that forbad Aboriginal
children from swimming.
“It’s a significant part of the
history of Moree, but it’s also a significant part of the history of Australia,” Ms Humphries said. “We
have to acknowledge that it did
happen and, like all historical
events, learn from it.”
Rachel Perkins said while segregation was a thing of the past,
chronic indigenous disadvantage
persisted. “Back then it was segregation and people living under the
Boardroom opening for boy who dared to dream
EXCLUSIVE
NICOLA BERKOVIC
GEORGE Brown was in primary
school when his community was
granted title over its traditional
lands on the NSW south coast.
He dreamt of one day helping
to manage its beaches and its
parklands.
Now the 31-year-old, from the
small Aboriginal community of
Wreck Bay, has been given the
chance to sit on the board of a
national not-for-profit organisation, which he hopes will arm
him with the skills to help run his
own community.
“Whatever I learn, I know that
I will take that back home to my
community board and suggest
new ways of thinking and doing
business,” he said.
Mr Brown has earned a spot on
the Observership Program, set up
to give professionals aged 25 to 40
an opportunity to gain boardroom
experience in the community
sector.
Respected business leader and
program patron David Gonski
said the scheme, which was
launched last week, was a great
way for aspiring directors to learn
what to do and not do.
He said the program was also
giving young women and individuals from different backgrounds
the chance to gain governance
skills.
JOHN FEDER
George Brown in Sydney’s Surry Hills
“Seeing the diversity in gender
and background of the participants, as well as their enthusiasm
and energy, reassures me that the
boards of tomorrow will be active,
engaged and made up of people of
both genders and many different
backgrounds,” Mr Gonski told
The Australian.
Mr Brown has already excelled
academically, as his school’s first
Aboriginal captain and the first in
his immediate family to gain a
tertiary education — a commerce
degree at the University of NSW.
He will now join the board of
Creating Australia as a nonvoting member for 12 months.
“I think it’s hard for many
young people to join a board
unless they have the networks and
contacts,” he said.
“Programs like this make it a
bit easier.”
The Observership Program
was initially launched in 2012 as a
pilot by former investment banker
Jonathan Gavshon and saw 25 per
cent of boards inviting their
observer to join as a fully fledged
member.
Women make up almost half
— 49 per cent — of the program’s
75 participants for this year, a far
cry from the ASX 200 list of
companies, where women make
up about 19 per cent of directors,
according to the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Mr Gavshon said the program,
which was modelled on a successful US scheme, was an opportunity for not-for-profits to stay
relevant in a changing business
environment.
“Not only do boards engage
the talents and perspectives of the
next generation in a low-risk,
meaningful way, they ensure
observers are provided with the
support to contribute properly,”
Mr Gavshon said.
More than 75 not-for-profits
have signed up to the program,
including the Starlight Foundation, Cure Cancer, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the
Sydney Swans Foundation and
the Garvan Institute of Medical
Research
Corporate sponsors to have
signed on with The Observership
Program include Facebook, the
Commonwealth Bank, Credit
Suisse and PwC.
AUSTRALIA’S Human Rights
Commission has intervened in the
fight by thousands of Tasmanians
to be recognised as Aborigines,
taking on a potential test case
that could force state legislative
change.
The commission is demanding
the Tasmanian Electoral Commissioner explain a decision to bar
northwest man Leslie Dick from
taking part in elections for the
Aboriginal Land Council of
Tasmania.
In 2002, Mr Dick secured an
Administrative Appeals Tribunal
ruling he was “of the Aboriginal
race”, but state electoral commissioner Julian Type last month
ruled he was not an Aborigine
for the purposes of land council
elections.
Mr Dick lodged a complaint
with the commission alleging
discrimination and the federal
human rights body has written to
Mr Type seeking an explanation
and pointing out national and
international human rights laws.
The commission has required
Mr Type to explain the basis of his
decision that Mr Dick is not an
Aborigine and the information on
which he relied to make this judgment, ahead of potential conciliation proceedings.
Mr Dick told The Australian he
hoped that his complaint would
become a “test case” that opened
up voting rights for thousands of
Tasmanians recognised as Aborigines by federal courts but denied
this status at the state level.
“I don’t know of anywhere else
in the world where a person has to
go to a federal court to provide
their (indigenous) identity,” Mr
Dick said. “It is degrading … and,
given all those anti-discrimination
laws, just ludicrous.”
Hundreds of Tasmanians have
federal court or tribunal rulings
that they are Aborigines, but these
have not been recognised as sufficient by state authorities, which
have denied them land council
voting rights and indigenous fishing and hunting rights.
A successful ruling by the
AHRC against Mr Type’s decision
could force the state to change its
legislation and processes.
Mr Dick’s case is strongly supported by independent senator
Jacqui Lambie, who counts herself
among disenfranchised indigenous descendants. “We feel discriminated against and feel that our
rights have been denied,” she said.
“There are thousands of people
like me who can’t get our indigenous status recognised — that’s
really hurtful.”
Mr Type would not comment
on any individual case because of
privacy concerns, but he told The
Australian he had made a decision
to exclude three people from the
land council roll.
This was after receiving objections alleging they were not Aborigines and after having sought
supporting information from the
individuals concerned, as well as
from the state Archives and Heritage Office.
As well, he had sought the
advice of the Electoral Commissioner’s review committee, a
group of elders appointed to provide guidance in such cases.
However, Mr Dick said this
committee was stacked with
people determined to exclude him
and others in order to protect their
grip on power, land and funding.
The committee includes land
council chairman Clyde Mansell,
who has written a discussion paper
calling for more stringent tests to
exclude “wannabe” and “tick-abox” Aborigines from indigenous
bodies.
Mr Mansell insists he is merely
seeking to protect the integrity of
Aboriginal decision-making.