(1)   Has he or his office staff, at any time, sought advice on ways in which Migrant Resource Centres might have their constitutions changed to allow the Minister greater influence in the appointment of directors.

(2)   Has he or his office staff, at any time, received advice on the possibility of Migrant Resource Centre constitutions being changed through the withholding of Commonwealth funds, with a view to allowing the Minister greater influence in the appointment of board members.

(3)   Has the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs provided any advice referred to in (2) to the office of the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural affairs or any other Minister in the past three years; if so, (a) what are the details of the advice and (b) to whom was it provided.

(1)   Mr McGauran sought such advice in the context of briefing on his portfolio responsibilities.

(2)   Mr McGauran sought such advice, again in the context of briefing early in his term of office.

(3)   The advice referred to in (2) was provided to the former Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs in November 2004. The Department has not provided this information to any other Minister in the past three years.

(a)   The advice was provided by email, the relevant section of the email is attached.

(b)   The Minister’s Chief of Staff and the Minister’s Adviser.

ATTACHMENT QON 812 (3)(a)

Relevant section of an email sent to the former Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs in November 2004.

MRC appointment process

You also enquired about the possibility of having other MRCs change their constitution to allow the Minister to approve its Board nominations and appoint Board members directly (along the lines of the MIC).

Most, if not all, MRCs are incorporated associations and their affairs are government by their Constitution. The Constitution (we have assumed that the Gippsland one is typical of all others) does not provide for any involvement of the Minister in the appointment process of members to the MRC committee of management. The Constitution does provide that Federal Government nominees may be co-opted to the committee of management as observers and or advisers but they will not have voting rights.

For the Minister to have involvement in the appointment process of the MRC committee of management, the Constitution would have to be amended to include specific provisions providing for such involvement.

It is possible that this requirement could be made a condition of continued Commonwealth funding on the basis that the Commonwealth through the Minister would like to have some involvement in the selection of the committee of management if it will be making decisions to spend funds provided by Commonwealth taxpayers. The question then would be whether this is a condition to be placed on one, several or all MRCs.

If it were to be all MRCs, the Minister could write to MRC/MSAs requesting that they amend their constitutions to make provision for the Minister to have formal involvement in appointment processes. For example, this condition could be identified when we write to MRC/MSAs in requesting their bids for core funding for 2005-06. Should they decline funding could be denied. However, if organisations wanted to comply, we have been advised that enacting amendments to an organisation’s constitution can be a lengthy and very public process. It would involve the calling of special meetings etc, and will attract attention and publicity. Denial of funding would also be seen as provocative.

An alternative would be an informal approach on a one-to-one basis between Minister, the dept and the organisation.