Deep concerns about the Liberal party’s finances and financial accountability raised after a recent explosive leaked email from the party’s treasurer had been allayed and were in part false, the party’s federal president, Richard Alston, has said.
Alston said the party’s federal executive, meeting on Friday, had endorsed his plan for a smaller committee of the executive to review the party’s financial accounts in future before they were sent to its auditor.
Members of the executive had insisted they would bring long-running complaints to a head at the meeting, and demand an end to “a culture of financial secrecy” after being “kept in the dark for years”.
They were responding to a leaked email from the party’s treasurer Philip Higginson, in which Higginson, who is a personal friend of Tony Abbott’s, said he was going to resign and raised serious concerns about financial transparency. He said he had “attempted at times, without a great deal of success, to maintain a close watch on where the money went due to stonewalling and obfuscation by management”.
Higginson was also incredulous that the Liberal party had allowed Loughnane and his wife, Abbott’s powerful chief of staff, Peta Credlin, to occupy two such critical roles at the same time.
“How this party ever let a husband and wife team into those two key roles where collegiate competitive tension is mandatory … is a complete mystery … The federal director has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the organisation at all times, repeat, at all times. How can this possibly happen when the COS to the PM is his wife?
“It immediately brings about cessation of open communication to the federal direction, contributes to wooden and unreliable communication ... and, dare I say it, retribution.”
But sources insisted that – despite the damaging leaked emails and despite the anger expressed in the lead up to Friday’s federal executive meeting – it had “gone off well” and after a discussion about financial oversight, the meeting had unanimously agreed to the new role for the committee.
According to a statement by Alston, a long-serving Howard government minister, the meeting had “acknowledged receipt of an unqualified report on the party’s accounts by the party’s auditor” and had “acknowledged party fundraising in the current financial year, including in recent months, is well above budget”.
The meeting had also “endorsed a proposal” that its audit committee should have “responsibility for reviewing in future years the party’s financial statements for audit by the party’s auditor.”
“A number of recent media reports have contained statements on the party’s fundraising and budget management that have no foundation whatsoever,” the Alston statement said.
The meeting also established a working group to report back by the end of the year on ways to attract more women to stand for Liberal preselection at both state and federal level, a task considered more urgent after many female MPs lost their seats in recent state election losses.
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