Myer family member's 'mind blown' over reef call
A member of the Myer family dynasty who played a key role in establishing the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) has condemned a $444 million federal grant to the body as “shocking and almost mind-blowing”.
The grant, reported as the largest to a not-for-profit group, is to be funnelled to projects researching ways of preventing further degradation of the reef.
The latest comments increase pressure on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for making what critics branded a “captain's call” in allocating the funding to a group of just six foundation staffers, without due diligence or tendering the grant.
Michael Myer was a financial supporter of the GBRF and a member of its board for two years until 2002, when he quit in part over concerns about the growing involvement of figures from the fossil fuels industry.
Yesterday, it was revealed governance experts and lawyers from Environmental Justice Australia believed the grant contravened the government's own guidelines.
Mr Myer said his scathing views on the grant were informed by almost 40 years' involvement in the Myer Foundation, one of Australia's leading philanthropic organisations.
He said the GBRF board and its supporters came to feature “a lot of players” from fossil fuel-oriented industries, which raised “big questions” about climate change impacts on the reef.
“There is a cognitive dissonance … on the one hand saying the reef is really precious to us, it’s an icon, we must protect it, but on the other hand actively pursuing policies that have the opposite effect,” he said.
Do you believe, as the Federal Opposition does, that the GBRF should hand the grant back to the Government?
Within weeks of learning it would receive a grant worth nearly half a billion dollars, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Foundation treated mining and banking executives to a weekend of snorkelling and sunset drinks.
But the trip also included accommodation and meals at the expensive Qualia Resort, trips to yacht clubs and guided snorkelling tours. Attendance was only available to the affiliates who paid the $20,000 foundation membership fee, including BHP, JP Morgan, Rio Tinto, Shell, AGL, Commonwealth Bank, Deutsche Bank, Boral Limited and many other companies.
The foundation set 25 per cent of that fee aside to fund the Hamilton Island trip, rather than ensuring all of it was spent on projects to improve the reef.
And a little more …
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Thanks for the photo RnR, lovely colours, better than those criminals above.