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A classified inquiry by ex-spy chief Dennis Richardson has provided a scathing assessment of how Australia’s Department of Home Affairs managed hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for the offshore asylum seeker processing system.
Whistleblowers also confirmed that Richardson said he would pass their details to the National Anti-Corruption Commission after they raised allegations of graft and crime during his Albanese-government commissioned inquiry into contracting under the so-called Pacific Solution.
Dennis Richardson has criticised Home Affairs handling of offshore detention contracts.Credit: Rhett Wyman
The revelation that the review is highly critical of the way the department managed Australia’s offshore processing procurement regime was confirmed by official sources who have read Richardson’s still-secret report but are not permitted to discuss it publicly.
Home Affairs minister Clare O’Neil received Richardson’s report weeks ago but declined to answer questions about whether it would be released, stating only it was under review. “The Richardson inquiry is currently under consideration by government,” a spokesperson for O’Neil said.
It comes amid fresh corruption concerns surrounding controversial contractor Paladin, which was paid hundreds of millions of dollars to run the Manus Island detention centre.
This masthead has obtained documents, including court files and financial records, that show Paladin made suspicious payments to a businessman with links to both the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang and to allegedly corrupt officials in Papua New Guinea.
According to Paladin paperwork, payments of at least $3 million were made to the businessman’s offshore account which Paladin expected would secure backing from PNG politicians as it sought to overcome resistance to its delivery of its Home Affairs contract on Manus Island.
A former Paladin director, Ian Stewart, has also revealed he reported the offshore Paladin payments “externally to agencies as suspected bribes”.
Separately, a Manus Island clan leader and former Paladin business partner has alleged in court documents that the Australian firm may have defrauded him while paying millions to the family of a powerful PNG politician who then “dished” it out to others.
The classified report by Richardson, a former director general of ASIO, examines how Home Affairs engaged with contractors such as Paladin and Brisbane firm Canstruct, along with the dozens of subcontractors, that were paid billions of dollars to run Australia’s offshore processing system.
Richardson’s inquiry was ordered by the Albanese government in July after this masthead and 60 Minutes revealed in the Home Truths investigation detailed allegations that firms contracted for offshore processing may have been corrupted, with suspect payments funnelled to foreign politicians in Nauru and PNG.
The official sources with knowledge of Richardson’s findings said his report concluded that serious failures within Home Affairs had led to the engagement of contractors and subcontractors with alleged links to dubious business dealings or foreign officials.
Richardson found Home Affairs did not conduct adequate due diligence on some contractors, a problem exacerbated by information sharing failures between departmental officials and agencies such as the Australian Federal Police.
The sources said Richardson closely examined the decision of Home Affairs to continue to contract with a company closely linked to Australian businessman, Mozammil Bhojani, after Australian authorities charged Bhojani with bribing Nauruan officials to gain mining favours.
Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani.
Home Affairs retained Bhojani’s company in Nauru even after he was convicted, court and departmental files show.
Richardson also interviewed former Paladin employees about their concerns about the way the company operated in PNG.
Home Affairs paid Paladin $530 million in taxpayer funds to run the detention centre for just over two years between 2017 and 2019 but from the beginning, the company had difficulty with PNG officials in obtaining visas and work permits.
An invoice to Paladin from a businessman.
An ongoing investigation by this masthead can reveal that Paladin paid at least $3 million to an offshore account in 2018 and 2019 to get the backing of senior PNG officials.
In a statement to this masthead, former Paladin director Ian Stewart described the payments as “very likely” to be bribes paid to ensure Paladin could obtain visas and work permits. He said he had reported his concerns to Australian law enforcement agencies.
Payment records show the funds were sent to the Singapore account of a Chinese-Malaysian businessman with interests in Queensland and PNG and who entered into a business arrangement with Paladin that Stewart now alleges was a sham.
The businessman is now at the centre of a federal police investigation involving Paladin and allegations that some of the $3 million paid by Paladin was used to get favours from PNG officials close to the businessman.
The Chinese-Malaysian businessman, who this masthead is not naming for legal reasons and who did not respond to efforts to contact him, has a chequered history that has also been unearthed by this masthead.
Refugees at Manus Island detention centre in 2013.Credit: Kate Geraghty
His home was recently shot up in an alleged outlaw bikie drive-by and detectives subsequently alleged in court he had business dealings – that had soured – with a company owned by a bikie and which police claimed is controlled by the Comancheros motorcycle gang.
The issue of offshore processing remains a sensitive one for the Albanese government, which wants to avoid accusations from the opposition that it is soft on asylum seekers who attempt to travel to Australia by boat.
Other payments Paladin made in PNG are separately under scrutiny.
Rodney Pokapin, a Manus Island clan and business leader who partnered with Paladin to manage security on the island’s detention centres, claims the Australian firm did not pay his companies millions of dollars it earned running Australia’s offshore processing system.
Pokapin said in an affidavit filed in court that Paladin had instead “paid a lot of money in millions to” another company it partnered with to run offshore processing and which is controlled by the family of a powerful and still serving PNG politician.
“Funds from the [unnamed politician’s family] company were dished out to any person or event without proper recordings,” Pokapin’s statement alleges.
It also claims that in May 2019, the politician “was seen and filmed dishing out cash” they had earned through partnership with Paladin. This masthead is not suggesting that Pokapin is corrupt.
The Richardson inquiry is the second investigation into Home Affairs that remains confidential, after the government separately commissioned former Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs to investigate the conduct of suspended Home Affairs chief Michael Pezzullo.
Pezzullo oversaw much of the Home Affairs offshore contracting as the department’s chief, but the Briggs inquiry is limited to examining his private dealings with lobbyists.
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