Home Affairs Told the Minister Open Competition Was How to Get Value. By Then $6.47 Million Had Already Gone Out Closed.

On 16 September 2024, the Department of Home Affairs added an entry to its disclosure log and said nothing further about it. The entry names two ministerial submissions about the government’s $25 million social cohesion package — the money announced in response to the Hamas-Israel conflict, for Australian Palestinian, Muslim and other affected communities. Thirteen pages were released in part.

The package itself has been argued about at length. The arguments have been conducted from the outside, from published lists of who got money. These two documents are the inside: the paper the department put in front of the Minister, with its recommendations, its arithmetic, and the Minister’s handwriting on it.

What was released#

One PDF, thirteen pages, containing two submissions from Home Affairs to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. Both were cleared by Angus Kirkwood, First Assistant Secretary of the Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Division.

The first, MS24-000477, is titled “Social Cohesion Measures - $25 million package

• Implementation Submission: Open and Competitive Grant Round”. It was cleared on 25 March 2024 and signed on 4 April. Its classification stamp reads OFFICIAL.

The second, MS24-000380, is “Social Cohesion Measures - $25 million package - Implementation Submission – Part C – Engaging Social Policy Group (SPG) to deliver the Community and Cohesion Support Program (CCSP) for community led grants”. It was cleared on 4 April 2024 and signed on 23 April. Its classification stamp reads PROTECTED CABINET, struck through in red on the released copy.

Andrew Giles held the portfolio on both dates; he was Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs from June 2022 until 29 July 2024. The signature on both submissions is his office’s.

The release is substantially redacted. In MS24-000380, recommendations 4 and 5 are withheld under s. 42(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 — legal professional privilege — and recommendation 6 under s. 47C(1), deliberative matter. Paragraphs 5 to 9, most of page 4, and the whole of the Risks and Sensitivities section at paragraphs 18 to 22 are withheld under one or the other. In MS24-000477, the Media Implications paragraphs 24 to 26 are withheld under s. 47C(1). Direct phone numbers and one adviser’s name are removed under s. 22(1)(a)(ii) as irrelevant material.

What survives is the reasoning.

The money that went out first#

MS24-000477 exists to deal with what was left. Its opening Key Issue is a statement of the residue:

At this time, funding of approximately $5.218 million over two years to 2024-25 remains unallocated from the $25 million package of social cohesion measures to support Australian Palestinian, Muslim and other communities affected by the Hamas-Israel conflict (MS23-002210 refers).

The Background section then sets out where the rest had gone. Three decisions, each recorded with its own date and its own ministerial submission reference:

On 22 December 2023, you agreed to engage the first tranche of grant recipients under this package, including to vary existing grant agreements to community groups under the first tranche of Part B (totalling $1.250 million) projects through an ad-hoc closed non-competitive process (MS23-002316 refers).

On 15 March 2024, you agreed to engage the second tranche of grant recipients under Part B through an ad hoc closed non-competitive process with funding totalling $3.220 million for 2023-24 (MS23-002550 refers).

On 19 March 2024, you agreed to engage the Lebanese Moslem Association (trading as the Lebanese Muslim Association) and the Islamic Museum of Australia (IMA) under Part A through an ad-hoc closed non-competitive process with funding totalling $2.000 million, over 2023-24 and 2024-5 to conduct youth initiatives (MS24-000243 refers).

That is $6.470 million, described three times in the department’s own words as an ad hoc closed non-competitive process. The phrase is the department’s, not ours. The last of those three decisions was taken six days before this submission was cleared.

Each bar is an allocation the documents describe, with the date of the decision. Brick = an ad hoc closed, non-competitive process, in the department's own words. Blue = the open competitive round. Grey = money these two submissions do not describe. The submissions account for $15.688m of the $25m.

“Achieving value with Commonwealth funding”#

Having recorded the $6.470 million already committed without competition, the submission recommends competition for the remainder, and gives a reason:

In response to the urgent nature of the conflict, funding under this package has prioritised measures that could be facilitated as quickly as possible. As these initial measures are underway, the Department of Home Affairs (the Department) recommends that this funding be distributed through an open and competitive process that enables all relevant and eligible community organisations the ability to engage in the process, apply for funding and be considered on their merits. This is also the recommended approach for achieving value with Commonwealth funding.

The first sentence is the department’s own explanation for the closed decisions: urgency. The last sentence is its own account of what open competition achieves. Both appear in the same paragraph on page 2. Of the money these documents record being allocated by decision, 55.4% went out through the process described as closed and non-competitive, and 45.6% through the one described as achieving value.

The submission also records what the open round was expected to produce: grants of “between $20,000 and $100,000 for physical security improvements to facilities and between $100,000 to $500,000 for social cohesion projects”, and an estimate that “between 20 and 50 organisations would receive funding through this opportunity” (p. 3).

Internally, it is not treated as separate from what came before. The Financial Implications paragraph on page 5 calls it a continuation of the same sequence:

All grants provided through this Part B: Tranche 3 grant opportunity under the Social Cohesion package, including Grant Hub costs, are funded through existing appropriations, and will not result in any additional impacts on the underlying cash balance of the Commonwealth Budget.

Tranche 1 and tranche 2 were closed. Tranche 3 is the open round.

The ceiling, and the number it was built to reach#

The second submission, MS24-000380, is about the $4 million paid to the Social Policy Group to run the Community and Cohesion Support Program. Home Affairs had already published what that money would buy, and the submission quotes its own website back to the Minister:

”…The Department will provide $4 million to the Social Policy Group (SPG), a national not-for-profit specialising in social cohesion, to deliver a Community and Cohesion Support Program (CCSP)…Under this program, community groups will be able to apply for grants up to $20,000 to develop local initiatives for Australian Palestinian, Muslim and other affected communities…”

Then the organisation being paid to administer those grants told the department the grants were too small:

SPG has also established a website for community organisations to express their interest in this grant opportunity and advised that feedback on the program is overwhelmingly positive, but that grant amounts of up to $20,000 are likely to be insufficient for communities to achieve the outcomes intended from the program.

The department agreed, and recommended tripling the published ceiling. The justification is the part worth reading closely:

The Department recommends that funding amounts are increased to up to $50,000 for this SPG administered grant opportunity. This will ensure that recipients are able to fund larger projects and use funding to contribute to staffing as well as project costs. A limit of $50,000 would ensure that smaller grass roots organisations are still able to apply for smaller funding amounts where suitable and that a reasonable amount of recipients will receive funding (a minimum of 64 recipients).

The ceiling was not derived from what a project costs. It was derived from how many recipients $4 million would still reach at that ceiling — a minimum of 64. The Minister circled “agreed” beside that recommendation and signed on 23 April 2024.

Home Affairs’ page on the program now reads:

The Australian Government has invested $4 million to support community cohesion. Under this program, Social Policy Group have identified over 65 projects, run by Australian Palestinian, Muslim and Arab community-led grassroots organisations to receive up to $50,000.

Over 65 projects, against an internal floor of 64. The department published the outcome. It did not publish the arithmetic that produced it, and the “minimum of 64 recipients” appears nowhere in its public material.

“As soon as possibly”: the Minister’s own hand#

The Minister’s Comments box on MS24-000477 is not blank. It carries a handwritten instruction, transcribed here from the released scan:

Can we please roll out the grant program as soon as possibly and provide weekly progress updates to my office!

The word we read as “possibly” sits where “possible” would be expected; this is handwriting on a scanned page, and we are reporting our reading of it rather than a text extraction. The substance is not ambiguous.

It is worth setting that instruction against the timetable the same submission had just given him, one page earlier:

The Department of Social Services Community Grants Hub has advised that, using their standard timeframes for an open competitive process, they expect the grant round can be opened for applications in July 2024, with funding dispensed to successful applications in early December 2024. The Department will work with the Hub to compress these timeframes where possible.

And against the risk the department had already written down, in the Risks and Sensitivities section on page 4:

To mitigate the possibility of issues being raised by affected communities due to the perceived delay in providing access to grant funding the Department will:

The four mitigations that follow are a forecast notice on GrantConnect, continued engagement with community organisations, working with the Hub to compress timeframes, and an information webinar. Three of the four are ways of telling people about the delay. One is an undertaking to try to shorten it.

The legal advice that came after the decision#

Under Legal implications, on page 5, the submission states a constraint and then the sequence in which it will be tested:

Commonwealth expenditure requires constitutional support and express legislative authority.

Following the detailed design of the grant opportunity, the Department will seek AGS advice on the constitutional and legislative risk of the proposed activity and provide advice on any actions required to reduce risks.

The recommendation to proceed was put to the Minister, and agreed, before the Australian Government Solicitor’s advice on whether the spending was constitutionally supported had been sought. The related passage in the other submission, at paragraph 1 on page 3, records that on 22 December 2023 the department had advised it would work with a body whose name is withheld under s. 47C(1) “in order to reduce the level of constitutional and legislative risk”.

Who was not consulted#

Both submissions carry a heading for consultation with the department’s most senior officials, and both record the same answer.

MS24-000380, page 5: “The Secretary was not consulted on this submission.” The next line records that the Associate Secretary Immigration was not consulted either. The submission relies instead on the Secretary having been consulted on the original November 2023 package.

MS24-000477, page 4, repeats it: “The Secretary was not consulted on this submission.” “The A/g Deputy Secretary, Immigration was not consulted on this submission.”

Both were, however, consulted widely below that level — the Chief Finance Officer, Legal Group, the Israel-Hamas Social Cohesion Taskforce, Procurement and Contracts Support Branch, Settlement Program Operations Branch, and Media and Communication Branch.

What the objectives say#

One passage deserves quoting without commentary, because the wording is the finding. For a package created to support Australian Palestinian, Muslim and Arab communities affected by the conflict, MS24-000477 lists on page 3 what the grant round could fund. Alongside security improvements, it envisages “community driven, solution focused projects” that aim to:

Facilitate access to relevant support services; reduce instances of discrimination; develop tolerance and resilience; promote integration; promote Australian values; and improve safety as a result of threats due to the conflict.

What the documents do not say#

A great deal, and the gaps matter as much as the contents.

They do not account for the whole package. The allocations described here total $15.688 million of $25 million. The remaining $9.312 million is not described in either submission. It may be accounted for in the earlier submissions these documents reference — MS23-002210, MS23-002316, MS23-002550, MS24-000243 — none of which is in this release.

They do not say who received the closed money. The $1.250 million and $3.220 million tranches are given as totals. The two Part A recipients are named; the Part B recipients are not, in these pages.

They do not explain the closed decisions. The reasoning for them sits in the submissions that made them, not this one. Here they appear only as facts already established.

The most sensitive assessments are withheld. MS24-000380’s entire Risks and Sensitivities section, paragraphs 18 to 22, is withheld under s. 47C(1), as are its recommendations 4, 5 and 6 and paragraphs 5 to 9. We do not know what any of it said, and we have not tried to infer it. MS24-000477’s Media Implications paragraphs are withheld on the same ground.

They do not tell us whether the round ran to time. The submission’s own estimate was a July 2024 opening with payments in early December 2024, which the department undertook to compress. What actually happened is not in these documents.

One further oddity is worth recording. Paragraph 19 of MS24-000477 states: “The information contained in this submission is classified and should not be publicly released without the authority of the Department of Home Affairs.” That authority was subsequently given: the department released it, under the FOI Act, on its own disclosure log.

How to check this#

Every quotation above is from the single PDF linked at the top of this page, at the page number the department stamped on it. The file is a scan, and text extracted from it is corrupted in places — “promote integration” comes out of the text layer as “promote integra1ion” — so the quotations here were read from the rendered pages rather than copied from an extraction. If you check them with a text tool and find mangled words, that is the scan, not the quote.

Thirteen pages is small enough to read in full, and we did. Where a passage is redacted we have said so and named the exemption the department claimed, and nothing in this article is an inference about redacted content.