WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT
After a relatively quiet few months, the Home Affairs Minister and aspiring Prime Minister has returned to the spotlight.
The ex Queensland cop who left the force in circumstances that don’t get spoken about has burst back into the news cycle after revelations he handed out a lot of community grants in a questionable manner.
He has been accused of preferencing marginal seats with the grants, after slashing funding to recommended community safety projects and making his own special list.
However, while some stock standard dodgy distribution of taxpayer money for political gain has shocked a few people, even more have been left scratching their head that groups like the Proud Boys were left off Dutton’s hand-picked list.
“He didn’t give them a few hundred thousand to protect local communities from some vague ideological threat he’s tried to conjure up,” said one confused local commuter on our reporter’s B80 into the city today.
“Wierd.”
The grants were awarded from the Safer Communities program, which uses money seized from criminal activity to try and create, drum roll, a safer community.
One of the recipients was the National Retailers Association, which received a fast-tracked $880,000 grant from Dutton just 8 days after donating to the Queensland Liberal National Party at an event he attended.
Dutton also announced grants for two local councils before they had even been assessed, and then told his own department to jog on when they tried to tell him it didn’t represent value for money.
However, it can be confirmed that the Home Affairs Minister, despite blatantly corrupting the grants process, didn’t hand out any grants to community programs he quietly has a soft spot for, like the Proud Boys.
“I guess they are trying to ‘protect the community’ for free already, so he doesn’t need to send anything their way, but still surprising,” said the commuter from above, hopping off the bus and trundling off to his job.
“Maybe it will come out down the track.”
More to come.
