Feb 25, 2020

Share Perhaps the only thing developing quicker than the Australian Communication Exchange's wind-up processes is Paul Fletcher's determination to have its books examined. On Monday, the communications minister formally wrote to his party room colleague Zed Seselja, the Assistant Finance Minister whose portfolio includes charities, asking him to request the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission investigate the organisation that received $130 million in funding over five-and-a-half years to provide the national relay service, and most notably, the CapTel telephone captioning system used by around 1000 deaf Australians. As we revealed last week, the charity was in 2017 contracting an associate of its CEO Sandy Gilliland to conduct expensive consultancy work , shortly after the same associate had contracted Gilliland for $29,000 of professional services work. Gilliland said last week that lawyers and his board signed off on ACE's arrangements, while the second payment had nothing to do with his work for ACE. Writing to Seselja on Monday, Fletcher said he would like the Commission to consider whether ACE or its associated entities had "used its funds or assets for non-charitable purposes, such as for the private benefit of its members, directors or staff", as well as whether its responsible officers had "complied with the duty to disclose perceived or actual conflicts of interest and not to misuse their position". The decision on whether to investigate ultimately rests with the commissioner of the ACNC, Keating government minister turned Institute of Public Affairs senior fellow Gary Johns. Advertisement In his letter, Fletcher claims the ACNC has "previously investigated ACE and had a number of concerns" regarding its compliance with charities legislation. The ACNC operates under secrecy provisions that prevent it from disclosing or confirming investigations that do not result in enforcement actions: none have ever been taken against ACE. On the very same day the letter was sent, Gilliland, ACE's company secretary and liquidators met to wind up the company, in the presence of a single other member, ex-CFO and former director Paul Kennedy (who objected to the validity of the meeting and noted the absence of ACE's current directors). According to the minutes, quorum was achieved through Gilliland's holding of 33 proxies. Motions were passed to wind up the company, and instructing the liquidators to seek ASIC's consent to destroy its books, within legislative requirements. In the case of voluntary windups, the only such pre-requisite is ASIC's approval of proceedings. Share