Summary of below: Minister Keogh in April asked for an urgent briefing from the ANAO, followed by discussions with Memorial management. Both of those events happened in April but it took seven months for that to be admitted publicly – and it took our FOI claim to bring it about.
Why were they so coy? Perhaps because of some tension between Minister and Memorial and Memorial and ANAO as revealed in the FOI material. Check it out (update 18 November below).
Update: 5 July 2024: we've heard nothing further, though we checked with Minister Keogh's office on 20 June in the terms below:
It is over two months since the report that Minister was seeking an urgent briefing from the Audit Office and that discussions would follow with the Memorial 'as a priority'. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-12/auditor-general-criticises-australian-war-memorial-upgrade/103698970
Has the briefing from the ANAO occurred?
Has the Minister discussed the matter with the Memorial?
Will the Minister be making a public statement on these matters?
When?
17 August 2024: Still nothing heard. We are checking with the ANAO also.
19 August 2024: ANAO response received: 'As per the information available on the parliamentary briefings page on our website, a briefing with the Minister for Veterans' Affairs on Auditor-General Report No.21 2023–24 Management of the Australian War Memorial’s Development Project took place on 15 April 2024'. The parliamentary briefings page just records that the ANAO briefed Minister Keogh and his staff but gives no further details.
It's a mystery to us why this information could not have come to us from the Minister's office in response to our query of 20 June above. Answers to our three remaining questions are awaited: 'Has the Minister discussed the matter with the Memorial?' 'Will the Minister be making a public statement on these matters?' 'When?'
27 August 2024: We asked the Minister's office again and await a reply. We also asked the Memorial and they referred us to the Minister's office. We've gone back to the Minister. Our patience is (almost) infinite.
18 September 2024: The Minister's office has advised that the meeting between the Memorial and the Minister was held some time ago.
19 September 2024: Defending Country lodged an FOI claim with the Memorial for 'briefing notes, record, minutes or note for file of any meeting between Memorial officers and/or Council members and Minister Keogh and/or his staff between 13 April 2024 and 18 September 2024'.
19 October 2024: (decision date for the FOI claim): The Memorial advised Defending Country that relevant documents have been identified but they require consultation with third parties (presumably the Minister) before the Memorial can make a decision about their release. The new decision date is 18 November 2024.
7 November 2024: Senate Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Estimates Committee briefly scratches the surface of the ANAO report (use Search engine under 'Anderson' and 'Shoebridge')
13 November 2024: Joint Committee on Public Accounts and Audit hears from Memorial representatives.
18 November 2024: Memorial releases documents under FOI following above claim from Defending Country. Shows that the meeting between the Memorial and the Minister was on 17 April 2024. The Memorial Director wrote to the Memorial Council Chair a week after this meeting reporting some dissatisfaction from the Minister about the Memorial's not informing him about the ANAO report, as well as some arrangements for better briefing in future. The Director insisted the ANAO report was favourable. There was also a difference in interpretation between the Memorial and the ANAO. The released material also includes a note from the Director dated September suggesting that the Minister is working on getting extra operational funding for the Memorial before the end of the calendar year.
The background to this report can be found here.
It took a while, was a month or so later than anticipated, and was couched in equivocal language, but it seemed without doubt that the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) had rather dropped the Memorial in it for its management of the Big Build. People who had been observing the project for years from outside (like Honest History/Heritage Guardians had been) were rather unsurprised by the report. It was just a shame that there had been so few other observers over that time – and some folks who should have been watching closely, like the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Estimates Committee, had signally failed to do so.
The report; ABC; Age/SMH; Canberra Times; Guardian Australia; Mandarin; PS News; SMH.
The ANAO is always very cautious in its reports but if it gave marks out of 10, this comes in as a bare pass, perhaps a 6 out of 10.
The Memorial’s quick reaction tried to make the best of things.
Minister Keogh has asked for an urgent briefing from the ANAO, followed by discussions with Memorial management. Watch this space.
Photo credit: Australian War Memorial, February 2024 (supplied)
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