Federal MP ‘delivered’ multi-million-dollar contract to company that hired his wife to run ‘character building’ craft workshops

Federal Liberal MP Warren Entsch did not declare a potential conflict of interest when he “delivered” a federally funded project worth $5 million to a business that employed his wife to run face-painting and craft workshops in remote Indigenous communities.

The project, which involved the business and a local land council in Torres Strait building seawalls, was later withdrawn by the federal government without any publicity.

An ABC investigation has uncovered the scenario while examining material promoting the campaign of Mr Entsch’s wife Yolonde, who is the Liberal National Party (LNP) candidate for the state seat of Cairns.

The campaign material pointed to Ms Entsch’s record of charity work in helping the disadvantaged by working with not-for-profits and businesses, including in Indigenous communities.

Some of these entities — including a government contractor and an environmental foundation — have employed Ms Entsch while they received federal funding.

The ABC has found that while Mr Entsch promoted his involvement in these decisions, he has not declared on his register of interests his wife’s work with the entities, or that this situation posed any potential conflict of interest.

This is despite Section 14 of the parliamentary register asking MPs to declare “any other interests where a conflict of interest with a member’s public duties could foreseeably arise or be seen to arise” involving themselves or their spouses.

The ABC does not suggest that the couple has acted illegally, and Mr Entsch has vigorously denied any impropriety in the scenarios — arguing he had no obligation to make any potential conflict-of-interest disclosures.

He said his wife’s work had a positive impact on Indigenous women and children and he “was proud of the difference she made in these communities”.

An LNP spokesperson for Ms Entsch referred all questions relating to Mr Entsch’s declarations and her work back to her husband.

Seawall and face painting

Between about 2017 and 2019, one business Ms Entsch worked for was training and job provider My Pathway, owned by the private company Enterprise Management Group (EMG).

My Pathway operates in Indigenous communities across northern Australia, running training and work-for-the-dole style schemes funded through federal government contracts with EMG.

The business is known to Mr Entsch, as some of its projects are run in Indigenous communities in his electorate of Leichhardt, which encompasses Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait.

In April 2019, Mr Entsch issued a media release announcing he had “delivered” a seawall-building project worth $5 million for My Pathway and the Gur A Baradharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council (GBK council) to build together.

“The Torres Strait community told me this is what they wanted moving forward and I have delivered it,” Mr Entsch said in the 2019 media release.

Nowhere in his register of interests did Mr Entsch declare that just a few weeks earlier, My Pathway had engaged his wife to set up and run special “character building workshops” in Torres Strait and the Northern Territory, and that she had worked with My Pathway over the previous two years.

The only reference to his wife’s work in Mr Entsch’s register of interests was a declaration that she operated an income-generating company called YLE Enterprises, which engaged in contract and consulting work.

The character-building workshops were organized by Ms Entsch’s business, Empowering Women Empowering Communities (EWEC), on Thursday Island in mid-March and in the remote community of Ampilatwatja in the Northern Territory in January 2019.

EWEC promoted the Thursday Island workshop as being for 14 to 22-year-olds “disengaged with education training or employment” and would involve movie make-up and face-painting classes and dress-ups, among other activities.

Ms Entsch promoted the face-painting classes as giving young people the skills needed to “generate income” from face-painting.

A post on a My Pathway Facebook page promoted the workshops as an opportunity for participants to “make some cash” in future.

Ms Entsch hired two facilitators — a make-up expert and theater performer and an entertainer — to run the programs.

One of the entertainers, who asked not to be named and took part in the Ampililatwatja workshop, told the ABC it was successful and that participants were so keen to take part they would line up early.

In October 2019, Mr Entsch spoke in federal parliament about My Pathway and the GBK seawall project but did not mention his wife’s work with My Pathway.

In December 2019, the seawall deal was later withdrawn by the federal government, the ABC has confirmed.

The church and the documentary

It was not the first time Mr Entsch had spoken in federal parliament about My Pathway and the projects in northern Queensland Indigenous communities in his electorate, without declaring his wife’s work with the business.

In June 2018 he said he’d been “working closely” with My Pathway to ensure a historic church on Erub Island in Torres Strait was restored.

In October of that same year, Ms Entsch was listed in a My Pathway press release as “Program Manager” in Doomadgee, an Indigenous community in north-western Queensland.

In 2017, My Pathway funded a documentary, partly at Ms Entsch’s request, about a My Pathway-funded project she had been running in Doomadgee for local women to make female hygiene “moon sick bags”, for disadvantaged women in Papua New Guinea.

For more than a decade, My Pathway and EMG have been in receipt of federal government contracts worth millions of dollars to provide work-for-the dole-style programs and training in remote communities of the Northern Territory and Queensland.

In July 2019, the federal government’s National Indigenous Australians Agency awarded EMG a $17 million grant to undertake community development projects in Doomadgee.

The contracts were awarded by departments not associated with Mr Entsch and he has said he was not involved with the awarding of these contracts.

He said “to the best of his recollection” he has never lobbied for My Pathway or EMG to obtain any government work or funding.

Mr Entsch also said he had never spoken with My Pathway about his wife’s work.

Mr Entsch denies any conflict

Mr Entsch rejected any need to make a potential conflict of interest declaration about the situation, saying that in his view there was no conflict of interest and that “you are drawing a long bow comparing face-painting and seawalls”.

Mr Entsch said section 14 of the register of interest held that there was only a need for a declaration if “in the opinion of the member” it holds the potential for a real or perceived conflict of interest.

He said he was confident this did not apply.

He said he had “previously met with My Pathway staff and attended functions hosted by My Pathway in my capacity as the elected representative of Leichhardt”.

Mr Entsch said work undertaken by his wife had been secured on her own merits.

“It was well known that she was my wife. Neither I nor her have sought to use this as an opportunity to derive a benefit. I understand the contracts were very modest and were delivered and fully acquired,” he said.

He criticized the ABC for asking questions about the scenario, saying: “Clearly the polling is looking positive for Yolonde’s opportunity to win the seat of Cairns.”

An LNP spokesperson for Yolonde Entsch said she had worked with several Cairns-based not-for-profit organizations undertaking charitable community work.

“Grants disbursed for charitable work have been awarded and used within departmental guidelines. Yolonde has received no personal financial benefit from grants.”

The LNP spokesperson said Ms Entsch had drawn a minimal wage and expenses from EWEC over six years of operations.

My Pathway said this week that the business had briefly worked with EWEC supporting remote communities.

A spokesperson said My Pathway had engaged with all levels of government to ensure its program was relevant to key objectives and this “had included Mr Entsch as the Federal Member in Far North Queensland”.

“We work closely and in partnership with local Indigenous-owned and community-led organizations to support employment and social impact outcomes for the people in communities where we work,” the spokesperson said.

The ABC sought to ask Ms Entsch if she had any comment on whether there was any perceived conflict of interest that her husband should have declared.

An LNP spokesperson referred the ABC to Mr Entsch.

The rainforest research centre

The ABC confirmed an earlier instance of Mr Entsch announcing his involvement to help secure government funding for an organization while not declaring the firm had employed his wife.

On December 20, 2016, Mr Entsch said he “supported” the Cairns-based Reef and Rainforest Research Center (RRRC) to receive $400,000 in federal funding for stage two of a Building Resilience in Treaty Villages program.

The RRRC described itself as a not-for-profit seeking to build scientific knowledge in tropical Queensland and beyond, which worked at “the intersection of conservation, government policy and community economic development in the tropics”.

Its treaty villages program involved recruitment and training of multi-skilled community rangers to work in construction, sanitation, first aid and leadership in the borderlands of PNG, adjacent to Torres Strait.

The ABC confirmed that at the time of Mr Entsch’s announcement of the funding, the RRRC had a contract with his wife to run an auxiliary project in the same treaty villages.

The project involved sourcing donations of material to help PNG girls access female hygiene products, which assisted them in staying in school.

The RRRC said Ms Entsch’s contract was worth $40,000 and ran from September 2016 to December 2017, involved collecting hand linen and reusable menstrual pads for disadvantaged women in PNG in the treaty villages.

An RRRC spokesperson told the ABC the contract was “an auxiliary project funded directly by the RRRC”.

Mr Entsch rejected any suggestion he should have declared his wife’s work with the RRRC, saying her contribution was exceptional.

“Between the RRRC and the small amount of work that Yolonde did, it made a huge difference in the lives of the Treaty Villages in PNG and in particular young women and girls with the Moon Sick Bag initiative.”

He said he was “proud of the RRRC’s work through the resilience program in the treaty villages”.

“It was nothing short of extraordinary,” he said.

“Instead of trying to rake up mud, you should take some time and have a look at the outstanding work that they did not only in PNG but also the fantastic work they have done with their Great Barrier Reef initiatives.”

The RRRC had previously been given a $1.8 million government grant in 2014 to establish the project known as the Building Resilience in Treaty Villages (BRTV).