NSW deputy premier John Barilaro has brushed off the concerns of an unidentified public servant that a $50,000 grant to an agricultural cooperative associated with federal MP Angus Taylor’s family may be improper.
In question time on Thursday, Labor MP Yasmin Catley asked Barilaro: “Dead set, deputy premier, is this a grant or a bribe?” referring to what the concerned public servant had written in a note to file.
The note, an unusual step for a public servant, came to light through a call for papers by the NSW upper house about grants made to Monaro Farming Systems (MFS), which provides advice and research to farmers in the Monaro. The Guardian revealed it on Thursday
Angus’s brother, Richard Taylor, established MFS and chaired it until 2019.
MFS has received over $800,000 in state and federal grants since 2015. But by 2019 these had dried up and it was seeking funds from the NSW government to continue to pay a part-time coordinator.
“I am concerned about the nature of this agreement,” the bureaucrat wrote after he was told to make it look like a contractual payment for services, rather than a grant.
“I am concerned about the ethics of this. Is it favouritism? Is it bribery? This does not sit well with me. Would I be complicit? I need to discuss,” they wrote.
Another email sent by the deputy director-general of the Department of Primary Industries, Kate Lorimer-Ward, in January this year, recorded that the grant had been specifically directed by Barilaro.
“We have been directed by the Deputy Premier to provide them (MFS) with $50K to provide outreach services and support industry adoption,” she wrote.
But Barilaro told parliament that “unfortunately” he was not able to direct spending in the Department of Primary Industries and that questions about the grant should be put to the minister for agriculture, Adam Marshall.
“A file note written by an unidentified bureaucrat does not reflect government processes,” he said.
He said he would continue to fight for funding for his electorate.
