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Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles most likely wishes his venerable buddy David Collard would move altogether, but appropriate this week got right here the revelation that the disgraced businessman, whom Marles once described as “values-driven”, surfaced in Contemporary York court documents exhibiting he’s being sued for over US$209,000 (A$320,000) for now no longer paying the lease on his Rolls Royce Ghost Dim.
With out a doubt it used to be partly the penchant for flashy put symbols love a Rolls that attracted Marles within the main put, given he’s now no longer known for his subtlety. However as the Australian Federal Police remain tightlipped over their ongoing pursuit of Collard’s Scale Facilitation, the association continues to cast a shadow over the defence minister’s credibility.
Marles the hawk
Reverse Marles’ desk in his ministerial put of business in Parliament Condominium is a minute bookshelf which a government offer labels his “shrine to The USA”.
There are US flags, photos of Marles stateside shaking fingers with government officials, a Statue of Liberty figurine, assorted American memorabilia, and US history books. A great deal of them. It’s a tangible symbol of his regard, bordering on obsession, for all things American and Uncle Sam.
In the lead-as much as the 2022 election, the Coalition tried to paint Marles as some compose of Manchurian candidate below the affect of the Chinese Communist Celebration for now no longer disclosing a sponsored day out to China and for giving an come reproduction of his speech in Beijing to the Chinese embassy. However the smear never landed due to this of Marles is a China hawk; a true supporter of the United States in its fight to stymie China’s upward push as a superpower.
He’s an AUKUS correct believer, a contemporary-day Harold Holt who will gallop all the formula with the US battle machine.
A less famed ingredient about Marles is that he could per chance also be gullible. A minister with a science stage, he’s on the total forensic in his formula to his job, reading every departmental immediate and interrogating information save to him, as defence officials know too correctly. However if he likes someone his judgment can gallop missing.
“If he falls below the attraction of someone’s wealth, repute, or vitality, he won’t be talked down,” says a government offer.
But any other offer from at some level of the government confirmed these characterisations of Marles. It’s the identical for pet projects love recruiting ADF personnel (with a selected pastime in recruiting from Pacific Island nations). Defence officials flagged there indulge in been concerns that desired to be labored thru in recruiting from non-five eyes international locations, but once Marles is sold on an conception, he doesn’t take kindly to dissenting views.
Marles has an enthusiasm that is endearing and charming, one of the sources said, helping him manufacture a strong rapport with his counterparts within the United States, United Kingdom, and at some level of the Pacific and Asia. Of us are drawn to him.
However the shadow aspect is he on the total behaves love a baby in a candy retailer, someone livid by his defence toys and the privileges that contain being deputy prime minister and defence minister.
Government sources confirmed reports in The Saturday Paper in October that Marles loves the trimmings of put of business. His VIP RAAF jet, meeting heads of government, having contact with King Charles’s non-public secretary Sir Clive Alderton, and hanging out with the rich and highly efficient.
“It feeds his ego. And he doesn’t realise that this is all non everlasting. He’ll be devastated when he’s no longer any longer in vitality and the phone stops ringing.”
Enter David Collard
In behind 2022 Marles used to be invited to launch the Contemporary York headquarters of Australian startup Scale Facilitation on the 82nd floor of the One World Exchange Center, the tallest building within the United States. The skyscraper is freighted with significance as the positioning of the venerable Twin Towers.
Scale Facilitation’s founder and CEO David Collard hails from Marles’ put of birth of Geelong and labored as a partner at PwC in Contemporary York earlier than leaving in 2019 to originate Scale Facilitation and its subsidiary Recharge Industries.
Collard’s firms were pedestrian ventures before everything, supplying facemasks and medical gloves at some level of COVID. However, by 2022 he used to be spruiking plans to manufacture an EV lithium-ion battery “gigafactory” in Geelong and originate excessive-tech jobs in Marles’ electorate.
Marles used to be adamant about going to the ribbon cutting on Saturday, December 3, 2022, appropriate earlier than his scheduled bilateral meetings in Washington the following week, as he used to be fully enamoured by Collard. Marles saw in him a Geelong boy done appropriate, an entrepreneur who’d made it in Contemporary York and had a good put of business and condo to expose it.
Ever the hawk, Marles fell for Collard’s shtick that the gigafactory in Geelong would offer sovereign capacity for Australia and its AUKUS allies, freeing the West from its reliance on China, the arena chief in lithium-ion battery expertise.
“He drank the Kool-Abet,” the government offer said.
Marles ought to quiet’ve been asking himself, as many folk were doing at this level, how a minute company with itsy-bitsy revenue and no be conscious document used to be in a position to indulge in ample money to lease all the 82nd floor of the One World Exchange Center and wing folks in from around the arena for an unlimited celebration.
However now no longer Marles. He used to be so captivated by Collard that he couldn’t stare the red flags.
In his speech at Scale’s opening, he described Collard as, “a drive of nature … innately entrepreneurial … values-driven”. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who used to be with many others flown industry class to Contemporary York at Scale’s expense, said good things about Collard too, describing him as ”a superman … [with] the ability to witness round corners and over the horizon”.
However now no longer everyone used to be taken in. “My radar used to be going off about Collard from day one,” says a government offer. “I discovered him smarmy. I didn’t glean what his company did, what the defence connection used to be. It didn’t compose sense.”
Other defence officials were cautious about Collard too. They’d never heard of him or his company earlier than and considered the invitation to Marles as a low precedence. They had suggested that he decline it. However that used to be never going to happen, so Marles’ RAAF jet winged its formula to Contemporary York.
In his speech on the night, Collard tried to flesh out Scale’s defence links by highlighting the company’s veterans’ lounge and by acknowledging defence officials within the room.
One of these officials used to be Andrew Freeman, the then defence attaché on the Australian embassy in Washington. Freeman organised to play golf with Marles the next day to come on the routine Baltusrol Golf Membership in Contemporary Jersey, a course it used to be understood golf tragic Marles had continuously desired to play at. Just a few months later Collard employed Marles’ golf partner.
London calling
Quick forward to early February 2023 and Marles used to be within the UK with Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong for Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN) with their UK counterparts. After having dinner with then UK defence secretary Ben Wallace the night earlier than AUKMIN, Marles retired for drinks with colleagues at his London resort’s rather dear bar.
At some level of the drinks, Collard texted Marles to claim he used to be in London finalising a deal to aquire EV battery originate-up Britishvolt. Marles invited Collard to affix the group, and the next morning messaged him on encrypted app Signal with a selfie of their catch-as much as claim, “Gigantic to witness you.” Collard answered, “You too expectantly this present day goes refined.”
The relationship had change into personal, with the two exchanging frequent messages on Signal and reportedly dining collectively. Marles even visited Collard’s US$75,000-a-month Manhattan condo on no lower than one occasion, which in accordance with one other offer required a security sweep of the building.
ATO and AFP shut in
At the back of the scenes, Collard’s budding empire used to be a condo of cards. In 2022 his firms had lodged claims with the ATO for $126 million in R&D tax incentives and GST refunds and had received $76 million earlier than the tax put of business stopped additional payments round January 2023 as a result of concerns about attainable fraud.
The Severe Financial Crime Taskforce opened an investigation, which continues to this day as Operation Queenscliff below AFP Detective Sergeant Stephen Cato.
No costs indulge in been laid and Scale and David Collard indulge in beforehand denied any wrongdoing.
The $76 million used to be nearly the sole offer of funds for Scale Facilitation as Collard had been unable to snag any wide non-public traders. According to lots of sources, taxpayer money largely funded the lease of the One World Exchange Center offices, the opening celebration, Peter Dutton’s flights to Contemporary York and accommodation, in addition to Collard’s excessive-priced day out to Davos in January 2023.
Several sources additionally suspect taxpayers subsidised Collard’s daily life, including his condo going thru Central Park, the lease of luxurious autos, and quite lots of of the $780,000 designate of a bucks weekend in Monaco and wedding in Australia for his lieutenant Jimmy Fatone.
With the tap changed into off on the remaining $50 million, Scale stopped paying workers in Geelong and Contemporary York on time, and in the end no doubt now no longer. Vendor invoices were unnoticed. Collard hit up his unpaid workers and Geelong firms for loans, none of which he’s repaid, and maxed out the company AMEX card. Workers in Geelong and Contemporary York were hit up, with the reassurance, you’ll be paid back very soon.
He additionally lodged claims for VAT refunds based on inflated invoices with the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs to raise funds to shut the Britishvolt deal.
Boosterism continues
Reputedly oblivious to any whiff of exertion, Marles continued his boosterism of Collard, telling the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia in Would possibly per chance perchance 2023 that Collard “used to be impressed by the vitality of the alliance — the deep trusting relationship between Australia and the US — as a foundation for doing industry”. Marles described the acquisition of Britishvolt as “a basically AUKUS endeavour” earlier than concluding, “the account of Scale Facilitation is the account of so quite lots of you”. A day after the speech Marles joined Exchange Minister Ed Husic for a search recommendation from to the positioning of Recharge Industries’ planned gigafactory in Avalon.
Husic used to be a extraordinarily considerable aim for Recharge Industries as the company used to be desperately seeking finance from the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, which used to be being established on the time by Husic to raise Australia’s capabilities in areas love renewables and transport.
How great used to be sought is now no longer known, but a leaked letter from Collard to Exchange Minister Don Farrell four months earlier presentations he used to be seeking a whopping $600 million finance facility from the government for the gigafactory.
Farrell’s appropriate mate Marles used to be copied into the letter.
The government offer told Commence Politics/Crikey that company insiders badged this as Collard’s “First Follower” strategy: if traders can stare the government is investing in us, they are able to practice.
However there would be no first follower. Correct over a month later, on June 23, 2023, the AFP and ATO raided Scale Facilitation’s offices in Geelong and completed warrants over “alleged taxation fraud”.
Marles’ reward for Collard stopped at this level and he hasn’t said a note since — beyond telling The Geelong Advertiser in August 2024 that everyone within the Geelong group used to be “vexed” by the revelations.
What’s additionally ghastly is how with out problems Collard manipulated Marles and got so shut to him. Michael Graham, the main employee at Scale and a venerable classmate of Collard’s at St Joseph’s College in Geelong, told Commence Politics/Crikey that he spoke to Marles at a Geelong Cats game in behind August, telling him, “Richard, we all got duped by this, alternatively I basically feel there ought to quiet’ve been extra due diligence on your phase earlier than backing the company.”
Commence Politics/Crikey went to Marles’ put of business but they didn’t respond earlier than closing date. We additionally reached out to Collard with a series of questions but didn’t hear back. The AFP media unit responded to our question relating to the event of the investigation with the line: “The AFP will present an update at an acceptable time.”
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