Nobody Said How Much

Send us Fan Mail Victoria paid out $11 billion in COVID-19 business grants, on the integrity commission's own count. In November 2021 the department's own integrity team put a number on how much of it had gone to businesses that should never have been eligible. The number was $251,965,500. The report that reached the Minister four months later said $18.31 million. At seven minutes past two on the afternoon of 30 November 2021, the line carrying the larger figure came out of the draft. The note beside the deleted row reads "To be removed a [sic] requested by [the Dep. Secretary]". The threshold for telling the Minister was $5,000. This episode follows what the commission found four years later: $257 million paid to more than 9,000 businesses that failed the eligibility test, $108 million of that to businesses reporting no turnover, and about $8 million recovered. Its conclusion is that the department minimised the issue, discredited the analysis that identified the suspected loss, and obscured the decision to withhold the information from the Minister. The commission made no finding of corrupt conduct, and no adverse comment about the incoming Minister. It found that three officers were denied procedural fairness. It has not made recommendations in this instance. Nobody has been charged and nobody has been prosecuted. The department's response records that no officer adversely mentioned is still employed there. The Auditor-General published a line of its own in November 2023: it is likely that fraud occurred and, to date, remains undetected. Every figure and every quote is from the public record. The full source list is in the video's description. The narration is an AI voice. Audit This follows Australian public money to the end of the paper trail. Audit This takes one story at a time and follows it to the end. Every episode is built from the public record: court transcripts, sentencing remarks, corruption commission findings, Hansard and auditor general reports. No speculation. No dramatisation. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Audit_This Corrections and tip-offs: auditthismedia@gmail.com