Employment Minister Stuart Robert’s inability or unwillingness to disclose key financial details means he should be treated in the same way as former attorney-general Christian Porter who resigned last year over the operation of a blind trust set up to accept donations for his defamation proceedings against the ABC, Senate estimates has heard.
A Crikey investigation into Robert’s blind trust and investments raised a series of unanswered questions about the minister’s financial dealings, Labor Senator Murray Watt said. He asked Trade Minister Simon Birmingham why Robert had not met the same fate as Porter.
“Minister Porter could not say who those donors were,” Watt said. “It was, to use the prime minister’s words, the inability for minister Porter to be able to practically provide further information because of the blind nature of those arrangements that is what prevented minister Porter from conclusively ruling out a perceived conflict.
“Minister Robert sets up a blind trust but has yet to disclose the name of it. He doesn’t disclose the identity of the trustee. He doesn’t know what’s going on inside. He can’t rule out conflicts of interest. How is that different?”
The trust first came to light after David Hardaker’s series into Brother Stuie, his financial dealings and his powerful friends. The series found Robert, while working as minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) between 2019 and 2021, was a co-director of a company that made investments with and for Robert, and was registered at the same address as his co-director’s NDIS-linked companies.
He also had shares in a junior mining company called Atlas Iron, the sale of which led to a windfall for Robert, known as Brother Stuie by Prime Minister Scott Morrison for their shared Pentecostal beliefs.
It’s not clear who manages Robert’s blind trust. His register of interests, thanks to the blind trust, is now a blank page.
Birmingham said that although he was sure Robert had complied with all relevant declarations to ensure a conflict of interest was avoided, the “fundamental point” of blind trusts were so that that a minister “can disclose all direct knowledge and responsibility and handling of assets they may own and invest those in another” that they didn’t have a line of sight over.
Watt said he wasn’t advocating for parliamentary members to be banned from using blind trusts.
Questions on whether the prime minister or his office discussed the blind trust with Robert — including the name of the blind trust or the identity of the trustee, and dates of advice or payments — were taken on notice by Birmingham.
Labor’s spokesman on legal matters Mark Dreyfus and Greens Senator Larissa Waters backed calls last year for answers into the blind trust.
Lets be clear. The purpose of blind trusts used in this context is not to conceal the donors identity from the beneficiary but to conceal the donor, and all the transactions from the electorate.
There is no way either Porter orRobert dont know who their donors are.
The whole point of bribery is to get benefits from the recipient. Hows that going to work if the recipient doesnt know who the donation come from?
They know, we dont. Corruption.
Could not be clearer nor more blatant & nose thumbing.
You seem to have missed the difference between Porter’s trust and Roberts’. Porter’s disguises the identity of donors paying his legal bills, as you recognise. Roberts’ trust is more conventional. Investments Roberts held before he was a minister were transferred into the blind trust so he should no longer know what investments he holds. The trust does not, so far as anyone knows, take donations, and I’m not aware anyone has made any such allegation. The problem with it is that nobody can be sure Roberts is genuinely ignorant of the investments so nobody can tell if he has a conflict of interest.
In fact Turnbull had this sort of trust when he became PM. Porter’s wasn’t a blind trust at all. He just called it that, and hoped we’d accept it (a bit like how calling it a national “cabinet” was meant to confer the benefits of cabinet confidentiality.)
Precisely. Such a shame (literally) that journos. won’t make the clear.
Like writing that Bridget McK was sacked for sports rorts – tendentious mendacity.
And not unpurposed.
Does the trust run an ISP that charges $1200 p/month for internet access?
Is the trust involved in Robert’s China venture on a private jet?
…. On Paul Marks arm?
…. Those watches from “Noodles” Li Ruipeng?
Talk about Chinese whispers.
A party of crooks.
Hiding in a church
Waiting to mug parishioners
What’s the collective for a “paid coven” of crooks?
Blind trusts again, pfft… Brother Stuie, no more blind trust, faith in you no more.
I imagine the CCP would be happy to use blind trusts to bankroll certain politicians. I recall Brother Stuie had some dealings with senior CCP officials in the past, or am I mistaken?
Nope, not mistaken. He made representations to a Chinese businessman on behalf of his brother, and also received a beautiful Rolex watch-that he failed to declare at the time.
“Watt said he wasn’t advocating for parliamentary members to be banned from using blind trusts.”
Can anyone say why Watt stops short of advocating for parliamentary members to be banned from using blind trusts? He’s clear enough about the problems associated with them. What legitimate purpose is there when it is practically impossible to show they are really blind? In the real world they seem even more problematic than non-disclosure agreements. (See for example today’s Crikey article about High Court judge Dyson Heydon.) Could it be Watt is unwilling to embarrass some colleagues who have their own blind trusts?