‘The Guardian’ has stated the bleeding obvious and announced that there were no environment department officials at the handing over of half a billion dollars to a virtually unknown bunch of rent-seekers; but they did reveal that “small Great Barrier Reef charity” is an arm of “wealthy businessmen and philanthropists with links to the resources industry, and one was a senior public servant in the Bjelke-Petersen government”. NB: “resources industry” aka mining. How will that go down with the greenies. And how about the link to Joe Bejelke Peterson?

The paper also confirmed that no request was made by the ‘charity’, and the decision to hand over the money was a personal one by King Mal.

The founder of the ‘charity’ was Sir Sydney Schubert, a public servant in the Bejelke-Petersen regime (not a noted environmental regime) with the intent to “bring science and business together with a common purpose of protecting the Great Barrier Reef.” There’s something else for the greenies to ponder: big bizzo/mining puts up the money, which gets the better deal? The business interests or the reef? Oh, and one of the ‘charity’ big shots is into shale oil mining in Queensland. Will the greenies really be able to stretch compromise to the required degree in this one?

The Prime Minister's office palmed off questions about the deal (let’s not worry about the fact that it is our money the PM is flashing around, and is him who should do the explaining), and the rest of the article faded away in the usual bullshite about the ‘sincerity’ of the wonderful ‘charity’.

Josh Frydenburg has defended the funding decision and
said the Government has been "completely open."

"We provided a lot of this money to the Foundation because
they are able to leverage more funding off the private
sector," he said.

"We have a comprehensive set of arrangements with the
Foundation to ensure that the Queenland (and) Federal
Governments and The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
are involved in the investment decisions and consulted, and
indeed the Foundation is made up of the most eminent
scientists who understand the reef and the challenges it faces."

Below is the Coalition's policies of investment in our
Great Barrier Reef - which clarifies things even further:

http://www.liberal.org.au/coalitions-policy-invest-our-great-barrier-reef

This is about as wise a use for tax payer dollars as 50 Billion, yes billion with a "B", on building subs in that failed state South Australia.

I wonder who would have made such a stupid decision?

Ttbn

I think your getting yourself into another knot over this issue.

Wikipedia clean energy finance corp for history on this money!
That'll save me the trouble of educating you on the subject.

Beats me why the senate find this issue of interest.

I've stated my feelings on the issue. Abbott attempted to shut them down, but was overruled by the senate. Now it seems roles have reversed?!

Nothing will save the Reef, it's all over! Taxpayer funds should not be wasted on a futile effort.

Also as I've stated. Government bodies are quite happy to dump sewage up and down the east coast, directly into the ocean, destroying ecosystems at will.
It's a total hypocrisy to pretend an interest in the barrier reef....

This is shocking to me, is there anything we can do to prevent deals like this?

Too many people.