Behind the scenes of a charity high school music event, board members have benefited from promotion of their personal business interests, and in 2017, musician James Morrison oversaw a $130,000 land sale deal while Chairman with an old friend and previous board member using charity funds.

Parliamentary expenditure records show Tony Abbott charged taxpayers over $95,000 for 16 days of travel to Indigenous communities while he was Special Envoy for Indigenous Affairs in 2018 and 2019, and charged for increases in office and administration expenses in the lead up to the Warringah election in May 2019 while holding the role.

The South Australian Government refuses to release the cost of taking musician James Morrison and several James Morrison Academy of Music students on a taxpayer-funded trip to China in 2016, and holds no records of a government award given to Morrison’s son five weeks prior to the trip.

New documents released under freedom of information law confirm the South Australian Government awarded musician James Morrison $550,000 of taxpayer funds for his private company from a regional development fund without any application process in 2015. Within months, Morrison put his name to an application seeking an additional $16 million involving the same fund.

The James Morrison Academy of Music was required to meet annual student enrolment numbers in order to meet the conditions of a government contract for $500,000 of taxpayer funding—but fell short for several years before the contract deadline of June 30, 2019, and offered admission to a student outside of formal processes.