After weeks of pressure over whether gaming clubs should be made to contribute to the Chief Minister's Charitable Fund, the head of Unions ACT has begun its own campaign against the charity administering the fund to a new level.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
At the start of July, Chief Minister Andrew Barr announced his flagship charitable fund would be run by Hands Across Canberra, granting $5 million in seed funding to the group, which this year distributed $150,000 to vulnerable people, following $200,000 last year.
In a petition to union members, Unions ACT secretary Alex White labelled the decision to give the money to the charity "unprecedented", and repeated his call for the money to be given back to the government.
"The decision was made without public consultation, without consulting front-line community workers, and without going to public tender," Mr White said.
"There's no justification, no transparency and there's been no consultation."
A charitable fund to distribute funds collected by levying revenue made by electronic gaming machines was flagged before the 2016 election, but the announcement that it would be administered by Hands Across Canberra was made recently.
Unions ACT doesn't object to the existence of the charitable fund, but believes there are conflict of interest issues surrounding key players at the organisation.
They claim there are conflicts of interest because the group's chief executive officer had previously worked for the ACT government and been contracted to develop its philanthropic strategy.
The Hands Across Canberra board includes former public trustee for the ACT Diane Kargas and director general of the community services directorate, Michael De'Ath.
An executive at St George Bank in the ACT, Charles Cramer, also sits on the board, leading the union boss to claim the ACT government is giving public money to bankers.
"If the Chief Minister had created a fund that was managed by the the public service or administered by the public service and had the feedback and involvement of people in the sector, and workers in the community sector it would be acceptable, that would be understandable," Mr White said.
Last week, Mr White compared awarding the money to a small organisation, that until now had no full time staff members, to the controversial $444 million grant given by the federal government to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Gordon Ramsay announced clubs would be able to continue to allocate the existing 8 per cent of revenue to community contributions as they saw fit, but rules would be tightened about what could be claimed as a community contribution. Clubs would also be forced to pay an extra percentage of their revenue into the fund.
The government had previously announced a portion of the gaming revenue that must be earmarked for community contributions would go to the new charitable fund.
"The Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund has been established to provide additional help to the most vulnerable members of our community. It will help to meet the social, economic, cultural, educational and environmental needs of the ACT and the surrounding region," a spokeswoman for the Chief Minister said.
"Establishment of this fund will aim to increase social awareness and the capacity for giving by leveraging individual and private sector philanthropy in the region."
The chief Minister's office declined to comment on the unions' bid to have the decision reversed, or the claims made about a lack of transparency or consultation.
