AFP retracts statement Dutton was briefed on Nauru bribery investigation
By Michael Bachelard and Nick McKenzie
The Australian Federal Police has been unable to answer a raft of questions in parliament about how a man convicted of bribing foreign officials was able to keep $30 million in offshore processing contracts over the five years that he was under criminal investigation.
Contracts kept flowing to corrupt Sydney businessman Mozammil Bhojani or his company, Radiance International, even after the AFP publicly detailed their involvement in the bribery of Nauruan officials in two media releases in 2018 and 2020.
Mozammil Bhojani and Peter Dutton, who the AFP admitted had not been briefed about his investigation as head of Home Affairs.
The grilling of senior police about the AFP’s actions relating to Bhojani raises serious further questions about how Home Affairs managed multibillion-dollar offshore processing contracts that are vulnerable to corruption.
ACT chief police officer Neil Gaughan was also forced to admit the AFP had got it wrong when it told parliament earlier this year that it had briefed then-Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton in 2018 about the investigation into Bhojani.
In its original answer to a question on notice in parliament, the AFP had said Dutton was briefed in July that year, a month before Bhojani was handed a $9.2 million Home Affairs offshore detention contract. But on Friday morning Gaughan reversed that, saying the police’s earlier answer was “not correct”.
Under fire from Labor senator Deb O’Neill, Gaughan said the Home Affairs department knew about the criminal investigation into Bhojani, but he could not say when the department was told. As for ministers, they were not given a “running commentary” about ongoing cases, Gaughan said, but they were told “at an appropriate juncture”.
ACT chief police officer Neil Gaughan in the hearing on Friday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
He could not say when or if Dutton was told about Bhojani.
The bribery investigation began in 2015, but Bhojani was given lucrative Home Affairs contracts to run accommodation facilities for refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru in 2014, 2016 and 2018. He was arrested for bribing Nauruan officials for favourable treatment over phosphate contracts in 2018 and convicted of bribery in 2020.
The federal police released a public statement on September 14, 2018, describing how the “Radiance International group of companies”, which were owned by Bhojani, had been allegedly “involved in at least five instances of bribery of the Nauruan officials” over the previous three years. It released another public statement in August 2020 to announce Bhojani’s conviction.
Bhojani quit as a director of the family company that year, but, despite the police action and Home Affairs’ knowledge, the contracts with Radiance International continued. The company was still being paid in June this year.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s Home Truths investigation has revealed the extent of suspect payments and alleged bribery that occurred on both Manus Island and Nauru relating to Australia’s offshore processing system. The revelations prompted Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to announce an inquiry, helmed by former senior public servant Dennis Richardson, into procurement contracts surrounding Australia’s offshore processing regime.
O’Neil, Dutton and the Home Affairs department all declined to comment further on Friday.
Dutton and Gaughan have both pointed the finger at the department, saying it had known about the criminal investigation. Dutton told the ABC 7.30 program that the AFP would have given the information to “the secretary of the department [Mike Pezzullo] or to other officials across the Commonwealth with the appropriate clearance.
Department of Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo in a parliamentary hearing.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“And if the department makes a procurement decision or enters into a contract [with someone] about whom there is intelligence available, that is an issue for the department,” he said.
Gaughan said the AFP – which at the time was part of the Home Affairs portfolio – had briefed the department but could not say when. Asked why nothing had happened as a result, he said: “I can’t speak on behalf of the Department of Home Affairs”.
He also said the team investigating Bhojani’s company “was aware that Radiance International was receiving money from ... Home Affairs”. Again he could not say when investigators became aware, but documents reviewed by this masthead suggest it may have been as early as 2015.
Asked if the AFP had expressed concerns to Home Affairs that it was paying a police target, he said “not to my knowledge,” but undertook to answer the question later.
In answer to earlier Labor questioning about the Radiance International matter, the AFP said it had wrongly told parliament that Dutton had been warned Bhojani was under investigation just a month before Home Affairs signed a fresh, $9.2 million contract with his company.
But Gaughan on Friday corrected that, confirming a meeting with Dutton had taken place in July 2018, but only that he had been warned that the police were about to “go overt” (arrest) a person connected with Nauru, which might be controversial at a forthcoming series of international meetings.
Gaughan initially tried to blame “misreporting and commentary” for the police error, but later admitted the police “should have used tighter language”. The Age and Herald relied on the AFP’s answer to a parliamentary question on notice for a July 25 report on the issue.
The question asked by Labor senator Helen Polley was: “Did the AFP inform the then-minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, or his office that it was investigating Mr Bhojani and Radiance International Inc for foreign bribery?”
The written answer provided by the AFP was: “The AFP acting Commissioner provided a verbal briefing on the investigation to the then-minister for Home Affairs on or around 12 July 2018.” Dutton maintained that he had no recollection, and no record in his office, of the briefing taking place.
On Friday Gaughan said he had been at the meeting “with a number of other individuals,” including Border Force commissioner Michael Outram and senior Home Affairs officer Linda Geddes, which had canvassed “a foreign bribery matter”.
However, it was “not correct” to say Dutton was told specifically about Bhojani or his company, Radiance International, Gaughan said.
Gaughan did not address the fact the AFP had made a public announcement on September 14, 2018, that described the alleged involvement of Bhojani’s companies in corruption. Such media releases are routinely sent to the Home Affairs minister’s office.
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