This is part six in a series. For the full series, go here.
Sometimes things look bad in hindsight. Really bad.
In 2016 Scott Morrison led a strident defence of his friend Stuart Robert as details emerged of a secret trip Robert had made to China in 2014 with a major Liberal Party donor, Paul Marks.
Robert, who was then minister for human services, travelled there — apparently while on leave — to be on hand for the signing of a business deal involving Marks’ mining company and officials from the Chinese government. Robert was also assistant defence minister.
But Marks wasn’t just any old Liberal Party donor. He and his company, Nimrod Resources, donated $2.4 million to the party in the years before, during and after the China trip, making him a whale in the world of political donations — and quite a catch for Robert, who claimed to be a close friend. Marks also donated $15,000 to the Queensland LNP and $300,000 to other state Liberal branches and the Liberal-aligned Free Enterprise Foundation through his investment company, P Marks Investments.
There was the strong whiff of a serious conflict of interest but Morrison, who was then treasurer, loudly objected to any investigation into Robert. Morrison called the accusations against his friend “a ridiculous beat-up”. The idea that Robert had lent his prestige as a government minister to his business mate was “an offensive suggestion” and “a massive overreach”. To underline it all, he walked into the Parliament in solidarity with Robert — a portrait of defiance and conviction.
Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered an investigation nevertheless, assigning Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet head Martin Parkinson to the task.
The Parkinson investigation revealed that Robert had a secret shareholding in a separate mining company in which Marks also had a shareholding. This shareholding — unknown to the public — raised the potential for a conflict of interest in Robert’s duties as a minister, Parkinson found.
Robert’s behaviour had been inconsistent with the PM’s statement of ministerial standards. He was forced to resign and was sent into exile on the backbench.
Five years on, the ties that bind Morrison and Robert have become much better known.
So what are the lessons from 2016?
The unfolding of the China scandal makes it clear Robert will never concede he has done anything wrong, even if evidence mounts against him. It also suggests that as prime minister, Morrison would oppose any investigation into Robert again if circumstances were similar.
Who controlled Robert’s interests?
Robert’s key defence was that he had no knowledge of his shareholdings and how they might conflict with his duties — or so he claimed. Robert maintained this was known only to the trustee of the blind trust which held his shares and other investments.
But who was the trustee? And what was the trust which held his interests? The answers have never been clear. Robert refused to say under media questioning. His register of interests at the time recorded that he was the beneficiary of an “extended family trust”, although he didn’t name the trust. In 2011 he had declared the existence of “the Robert Family Trust”, which he said was a blind trust, but the name of the trustee was not listed.
Are there any clues? Well, yes.
After being forced out of the ministry in 2016, Robert added himself as a director of an entity called Robert International Pty Ltd which was now, apparently, the trustee for the Robert Family Trust (as well as another entity, the “Robert Investment Family Trust”).
The wording is vague. It leaves open the possibility that the trustees for the family trust were Robert’s parents, Alan and Dorothy Robert, who were the directors of Robert International Pty Ltd while Robert was in the Abbott and then Turnbull ministries and needed someone else to run the family investments.
By a complex set of corporate arrangements, Robert International — with Robert’s parents as directors — had also been the 100% shareholder of Robert’s other main investment vehicle, Robert Investment House Pty Ltd, between 2010 and 2016.
So were Robert’s parents the mystery trustees of his blind trust? He has never said.
How the China scandal unfolded
Here’s the timeline of Robert’s China scandal, and how it led to ending his time in on the Turnbull frontbench:
2013: Robert invests in the ventures of mining millionaire Paul Marks
Robert declares on his register of interests that he has bought shares in Evolution Mining for himself and his sons: Caleb, Jacob and Isaac.
Marks — a director on the Evolution board at the time — is a key player. Marks is also the executive chairman of Nimrod Resources. In earlier years, Robert had bought shares in another Marks-linked mining company, Conquest Mining.
April 2013: Robert bills the taxpayer for a private trip to the opening of Marks’ mine
Robert travels to Townsville to attend the opening of a mine owned by Evolution, the company in which he owns shares. He racks up a bill of $1600 which he charges to the taxpayer. This is strike one in his mashing of private and public interests when it comes to Marks, although it would not emerge until 2016.
Robert ultimately repaid the money for the trip after it was revealed, but he refused to concede he misused public money and insisted that he had only a minor shareholding anyway.
AEC records show that Marks’ donations to federal and state Liberal Party branches and affiliated groups make Nimrod and Marks by far the largest resource donors to the party — and he is Robert’s man.
August 2014: Robert does his China business with Marks
Robert travels to Beijing with Marks to attend a signing ceremony for an agreement between Chinese government-owned company China Minmetals and Nimrod.
Robert was assistant minister of defence. It emerged later that he took the trip while on personal leave, approved by then-PM Tony Abbott. (Robert had introduced Marks to Abbott by this stage.)
February 2016: the proverbial hits the fan
The Herald Sun reveals that Robert made a “secret” visit to China in 2014 for the business deal. It publishes details of the signing ceremony, including that it was attended by high-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials, and that China Minmetals is a Chinese government-owned company.
It reported that, according to Minmetal’s website, Robert had spoken “on behalf of the Australian Department of Defence”.
February 8, 2016: the unravelling begins
Turnbull orders an internal investigation into Robert’s China trip to be conducted by the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
February 9
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus says Robert’s trip “can’t be both a trip for private purposes and a trip on which he met with a minister in the Chinese government”.
February 12
Robert resigns after the investigation finds he held shares in a company called Metallum Holdings, in which Marks also held shares.
In a statement Turnbull says that “in the course of assisting the investigation” Robert advised that “on checking his records” he had become aware that the shares in Metallum had been allocated to his trustee some time before the visit to Beijing.
This had been done “without his knowledge”. Robert had “further advised” that he believed Metallum had an interest in Nimrod, and that this would “create the impression” that he had something personally to gain from the Nimrod deal in China.
February 28
The Australian reveals that Robert held shares in a company that owned 35% of Nimrod Resources, finding that Metallum Resources, the company part-owned by Robert, held 35% of Nimrod’s shares — “second only to that of Mr Marks”.
Robert was by now history, languishing on the backbench. He has never revealed who the trustee of his “blind trust” was.
Next: a masterclass in hidden connections.
Crikey encourages robust conversations on our website. However, we’re a small team, so sometimes we have to reluctantly turn comments off due to legal risk. Thanks for your understanding and in the meantime, have a read of our moderation guidelines.