The Great Barrier Reef Foundation is a philanthropic organisation that, according to its own reporting, had $8 million in revenue in 2017, $9 million in revenue in 2016, and $58 million in revenue in the decade to 2017.

The foundation’s website lists its corporate partners as BHP, Google, and Rio Tinto, as well as Boeing and Qantas, which have current executives on the board.

Chairman John Schubert is a former managing director of Esso, while the chairman’s panel includes the heads of BHP, Shell, Peabody Energy, Orica, CBA, NAB, ANZ, AGL and the Business Council of Australia.

The foundation has six full time staff and four part time staff. They also support research by a couple of dozen researchers at CSIRO, JCU, and elsewhere. Their research focus includes larval reseeding of endangered reefs, and restoring damaged reef islands such as Lady Elliott Island.

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A week before the federal budget, the government announced it would give $444 million to the foundation to “tackle crown-of-thorns starfish, reduce pollution into the reef and mitigate the impacts of climate change”.

But questions arose on Monday about whether the non-profit group, which lists only six full-time and four part-time employees with the charity regulator, would be capable of administering a grant worth more than 45 times its annual budget.

During Senate estimates hearings, Environment Department bureaucrats revealed there was no competitive tender process to determine who would be best placed to receive the record funds.

Instead, the foundation, which has described the windfall as like “winning the lotto”, was chosen by the government without being asked if they wanted the money or how they would spend it.

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For me, there are three extraordinary aspects of this decision:

1/ This $444 million is the great bulk of a $500 million package, with the remainder going to the Marine Park Authority. The Marine Park Authority does this shit 24/7: they have over two hundred qualified staff. There are other charitable organisations that could have been supported, rather than putting all their eggs in one basket.

2/ The entire amount is to be given in a single payment. This means there can be no progress or performance component: basically just click send and hope for the best. I’ve never heard of anything like this for a 9 digit sum.

3/ There was no tender process. This huge amount of cash was allocated by direct award.

4/ There is no transparency. The government is not providing requested information on the decision making process: how was this particular charity selected? How did they work out that they should get 90% of the funds?

I’m not impugning the GBRF: it’s a genuine charity and it has funded interesting research. I just don’t see that anyone, of any political stripe, can argue that this opaque non-competitive process is acceptable.

Read about this the other day in the Graun. Was rather bemused by the whole thing.

I’d like to start a foundation to eradicate cane toads. My small but necessary management fee would be completely justified.

party_pants said:

I’d like to start a foundation to eradicate cane toads. My small but necessary management fee would be completely justified.

Here. Have tuppence ha’penny.

You can’t expect to get half a billion dollars.

dv said:

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation is a philanthropic organisation that, according to its own reporting, had $8 million in revenue in 2017, $9 million in revenue in 2016, and $58 million in revenue in the decade to 2017.

The foundation’s website lists its corporate partners as BHP, Google, and Rio Tinto, as well as Boeing and Qantas, which have current executives on the board.

Chairman John Schubert is a former managing director of Esso, while the chairman’s panel includes the heads of BHP, Shell, Peabody Energy, Orica, CBA, NAB, ANZ, AGL and the Business Council of Australia.

The foundation has six full time staff and four part time staff. They also support research by a couple of dozen researchers at CSIRO, JCU, and elsewhere. Their research focus includes larval reseeding of endangered reefs, and restoring damaged reef islands such as Lady Elliott Island.

—-
A week before the federal budget, the government announced it would give $444 million to the foundation to “tackle crown-of-thorns starfish, reduce pollution into the reef and mitigate the impacts of climate change”.

But questions arose on Monday about whether the non-profit group, which lists only six full-time and four part-time employees with the charity regulator, would be capable of administering a grant worth more than 45 times its annual budget.

During Senate estimates hearings, Environment Department bureaucrats revealed there was no competitive tender process to determine who would be best placed to receive the record funds.

Instead, the foundation, which has described the windfall as like “winning the lotto”, was chosen by the government without being asked if they wanted the money or how they would spend it.

—-

For me, there are three extraordinary aspects of this decision:

1/ This $444 million is the great bulk of a $500 million package, with the remainder going to the Marine Park Authority. The Marine Park Authority does this shit 24/7: they have over two hundred qualified staff. There are other charitable organisations that could have been supported, rather than putting all their eggs in one basket.

2/ The entire amount is to be given in a single payment. This means there can be no progress or performance component: basically just click send and hope for the best. I’ve never heard of anything like this for a 9 digit sum.

3/ There was no tender process. This huge amount of cash was allocated by direct award.

4/ There is no transparency. The government is not providing requested information on the decision making process: how was this particular charity selected? How did they work out that they should get 90% of the funds?

I’m not impugning the GBRF: it’s a genuine charity and it has funded interesting research. I just don’t see that anyone, of any political stripe, can argue that this opaque non-competitive process is acceptable.

The Great Barrier Reef is not reparable unless you can reduce the temperatures that are bleaching the coral, which even with the most optimistic outlook seems very unlikely. It strikes me that the government is passing its responsibility onto someone else, so they can say they did everything in their power to rectify the situation.

I wonder if this will lead to a bidding war between the Foundation and the Marine Park authority over those staff.

Oh, and I entirely agree with dv’s comments.

“Let’s give half a billion dollars to our mates – all for the public good, of course.” Seems the gummint is justifying it by say it’ll leverage donation from the big companies. What a load of codswallop. Why the hell would BHP et al bother now, with the Foundation half a billion dollars richer.

Usual model is something like: you raise a dollar, we’ll match it, or something similar.

I don’t understand the politics of doing this. Is it saying “Sorry CEOs, for the trouble we have put you through in the least year or two – you can now claim some extra board-member remuneration”?

I don’t completely agree with dv’s comments. I don’t know anything about the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, so can’t comment about their ability to manage such an amount.

• I read the line about their aims of “Their research focus includes larval reseeding of endangered reefs, and restoring damaged reef islands such as Lady Elliott Island.” and immediately said “Yes!”. That is exactly what is needed, we don’t need more research into why there are problems, we don’t need to fritter the money away on advertising, we need direct action and this is the exact correct action to take.

• “The Marine Park Authority does this shit 24/7. They have over two hundred qualified staff.” sounds like sour grapes. Consider the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Would it have helped the construction if all the money had gone to the farmers of the region, because they already have lots of people who are familiar with the high country 24/7? With over 200 qualified staff there would be infighting over who got the biggest slice of the pizza, infighting that could last for many years.

• The staff issue is a non-issue. The bulk of the money is for the hiring more staff, with a top-down management structure and powers to hire and fire to ensure that workers are not slacking off. Like the Snowy Mountains Authority. Or the Apollo project. Or to put it another way, the contract for the Collins class submarines had to be given to South Australia not the Newcastle shipyards. The acronym is BHAG – big hairy audacious goal – which is about the only management acronym that I actually agree with. Members of the Marine Park Authority, even the entire staff of the authority, are welcome to apply for the new jobs created.

• “The entire $444 million is to be given in a single payment. This means there can be no progress or performance component.” I totally agree with dv here, payments need to be started small then increase with each year. Annoyingly, this is a waste of money because money is lost to paperwork, the extra staff to do the paperwork, and payment of the inspectors, but it still has to be done. The inspectors have to be intelligent and impartial – ideally a single inspector.

• The risk of the entire $444 million to a small organisation is the risk that it could turn out like the Mohole Project. Where a small organisation promises a big return that they are unable to technically complete. Even there, there are no technical hurdles to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation proposal, unlike the huge technical hurdle of the Mohole Project.

• Tender would not have been appropriate here. Intelligence, vision, vitality and ability are what matter here.

> The Great Barrier Reef is not repairable unless you can reduce the temperatures that are bleaching the coral

You see. That’s the type of defeatist attitude that does no help at all. Don’t employ anyone on the project who has that attitude.

If as I suspect this money is to be spent over 6 years that is 74 million a year and not 45 times it’s annual budget.
Intentional misrepresentation, who knows what’s in the black hearts of men.
And the small work force problem could be overcome by the ingenious method of employing more staff.

Moll that is not defeatism, but realism. You claim to know the science so why don’t you work it out for yourself. I don’t think people really comprehend where we are heading and only a catastrophe will make it sink in. If you want to walk around with your eyes closed that is up to you, but stop spreading false hope.

mollwollfumble said:

> The Great Barrier Reef is not repairable unless you can reduce the temperatures that are bleaching the coral

You see. That’s the type of defeatist attitude that does no help at all. Don’t employ anyone on the project who has that attitude.

And moll, I would not wish to be employed on such a cynical exercise that unless temperature fall is inevitable.

PermeateFree said:

Moll that is not defeatism, but realism. You claim to know the science so why don’t you work it out for yourself. I don’t think people really comprehend where we are heading and only a catastrophe will make it sink in. If you want to walk around with your eyes closed that is up to you, but stop spreading false hope.

I have quite enough other doomsday scenarios to keep you busy if you want.

The barrier reef is only now catching up to the 120 metre rise in sea level following the last ice age.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

Moll that is not defeatism, but realism. You claim to know the science so why don’t you work it out for yourself. I don’t think people really comprehend where we are heading and only a catastrophe will make it sink in. If you want to walk around with your eyes closed that is up to you, but stop spreading false hope.

I have quite enough other doomsday scenarios to keep you busy if you want.

The barrier reef is only now catching up to the 120 metre rise in sea level following the last ice age.

You are just the sort of person Turnbull and co are trying to manipulate. Try using you brain and examine the science.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

Moll that is not defeatism, but realism. You claim to know the science so why don’t you work it out for yourself. I don’t think people really comprehend where we are heading and only a catastrophe will make it sink in. If you want to walk around with your eyes closed that is up to you, but stop spreading false hope.

I have quite enough other doomsday scenarios to keep you busy if you want.

The barrier reef is only now catching up to the 120 metre rise in sea level following the last ice age.

You are just the sort of person Turnbull and co are trying to manipulate. Try using you brain and examine the science.

Read the literature. I did.

PS. Who is Turnbull?

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

I have quite enough other doomsday scenarios to keep you busy if you want.

The barrier reef is only now catching up to the 120 metre rise in sea level following the last ice age.

You are just the sort of person Turnbull and co are trying to manipulate. Try using you brain and examine the science.

Read the literature. I did.

PS. Who is Turnbull?

If you read the literature, which I very much doubt, then you certainly didn’t understand it.

What would you have us do, desperately grasp at dwindling hope that does nothing except make the fossil fuel interests happy, or tell it how it is to make you angry enough to demand those clowns in politics do something about it. How do you convince the deniers to change their minds, put simply you can’t, you must take action yourselves and stop listening to their self-interested spiel. The choice is yours.

PermeateFree said:

What would you have us do, desperately grasp at dwindling hope that does nothing except make the fossil fuel interests happy, or tell it how it is to make you angry enough to demand those clowns in politics do something about it. How do you convince the deniers to change their minds, put simply you can’t, you must take action yourselves and stop listening to their self-interested spiel. The choice is yours.

I suggest we just wait until the earth is uninhabitable and then hold a big “I told you so” party.

dv said:

PermeateFree said:

What would you have us do, desperately grasp at dwindling hope that does nothing except make the fossil fuel interests happy, or tell it how it is to make you angry enough to demand those clowns in politics do something about it. How do you convince the deniers to change their minds, put simply you can’t, you must take action yourselves and stop listening to their self-interested spiel. The choice is yours.

I suggest we just wait until the earth is uninhabitable and then hold a big “I told you so” party.

I’ll bring many balloons and straws

Cartoon about the frequency illusion.

And also about lant. At first I assumed that lant was a word that the cartoonist had invented, but now I know better. Cursed knowledge.

The OED marks the noun as rare and the verb as obsolete. One of the cites for the verb is from 1674: “Dead drunk with double lanted Ale”.

Ah, the good old days. “Barkeep! You call this ale double lanted? I can hardly taste the piss!”

The wikipedia article mentions the use of lant “to glaze hard pastries” but there’s no supporting citation so I prefer to believe that was never a thing.

dv said:

Cursed knowledge.

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

Related topic. Anyone who has been to north Qld will appreciate the loss from a pristine environment.

Paradise three times the size of Sydney and Melbourne CBDs to be wiped out

A PLAN to destroy 2000 hectares of pristine Queensland forest has been given the go-ahead. However, the consequences could be catastrophic.

LAST week, the Australian government promised it would spend more than $500 million to protect our greatest national treasure, the Great Barrier Reef.

But now the government is being urged by environmental groups to put its money where its mouth is and reconsider a proposal to clear 2000 hectares of pristine Queensland forest on Cape York Peninsula.

Federal officials are planning to back the bulldozing of enough forest to fill the CBDs of Sydney and Melbourne three times over.

The clearing will see swathes of eucalypt forest, melaleuca swamplands and the habitats of a number of endangered species completely destroyed.

The draft report from the Department of the Environment and Energy recommends the government give the green light to the Kingvale Station clearing.

If it’s approved by Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, Australia will not only have lost an area of forest almost six times the size of one of our capitals, but run-off into the Great Barrier Reef is also expected to increase.

The land has a river system that flows directly into Princess Charlotte Bay, a tidal wetland with large seagrass beds — an integral part of the reef.

More:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/conservation/paradise-three-times-the-size-of-sydney-and-melbourne-cbds-to-be-wiped-out/news-story/a97b20b51af71f4df5b01cbf508b8b80

PermeateFree said:

Related topic. Anyone who has been to north Qld will appreciate the loss from a pristine environment.

Paradise three times the size of Sydney and Melbourne CBDs to be wiped out

A PLAN to destroy 2000 hectares of pristine Queensland forest has been given the go-ahead. However, the consequences could be catastrophic.

LAST week, the Australian government promised it would spend more than $500 million to protect our greatest national treasure, the Great Barrier Reef.

But now the government is being urged by environmental groups to put its money where its mouth is and reconsider a proposal to clear 2000 hectares of pristine Queensland forest on Cape York Peninsula.

Federal officials are planning to back the bulldozing of enough forest to fill the CBDs of Sydney and Melbourne three times over.

The clearing will see swathes of eucalypt forest, melaleuca swamplands and the habitats of a number of endangered species completely destroyed.

The draft report from the Department of the Environment and Energy recommends the government give the green light to the Kingvale Station clearing.

If it’s approved by Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, Australia will not only have lost an area of forest almost six times the size of one of our capitals, but run-off into the Great Barrier Reef is also expected to increase.

The land has a river system that flows directly into Princess Charlotte Bay, a tidal wetland with large seagrass beds — an integral part of the reef.

More:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/conservation/paradise-three-times-the-size-of-sydney-and-melbourne-cbds-to-be-wiped-out/news-story/a97b20b51af71f4df5b01cbf508b8b80

It is unfortunate that they won’t put developments on land that doesn’t need clearing and will not damage reefs etc.