The web of business deals behind Generations in Jazz

Image by Codi Ash (©)

For Generations in Jazz, James Morrison—one of Australia's most prominent musicians—has long been a source of publicity, encouraging high school teachers across Australia to travel with their students to the three-day music event held each May. Held in Mount Gambier, a rural town in South Australia, last year's event saw over 5000 students from 100 Australian schools and 2 schools from New Zealand attend three concerts, play in a school music competition and participate in a music workshop. Morrison's involvement with Generations in Jazz has spanned over three decades, including a five-year stint as Chairman of the charity that oversees the event, Generations in Jazz Incorporated.

For over a decade, Australian media coverage of Generations in Jazz has portrayed the event as an entirely altruistic venture, but as yet unaddressed by the media are the charity records, government records and advertising materials from the event that tell a different story: one of Generations in Jazz becoming intertwined with the personal business interests of Morrison and a close circle of his business associates, and being used for transactions from which they have gained financial benefit.

I. THE FINE PRINT

In July 2016, Generations in Jazz Inc. was given accreditation by Australia’s federal charity regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), as a registered charity, exempting the association from income tax and making it eligible to receive donations through a "Generations in Jazz Gift Fund" that has since been set up by board members.

The ACNC outlines minimum operating and reporting standards charities are required to meet while carrying out their work, including ensuring board members disclose conflicts of interest and act in the charity's best interests. It also holds the power to investigate complaints and revoke an organisation's charity status.

Generations in Jazz Inc. has operated as an incorporated association since 2000 in South Australia, where in December 2016, changes to charity legislation meant incorporated associations registered as charities in that state were required to report only to the ACNC, removing the additional requirement of filing reports to the South Australian State Government. South Australia is the only state or territory to have altered its legislation in this manner.

Initially set up to regulate and improve public trust in Australia’s charity sector, the ACNC releases limited information to the public about enforcements of charity regulations. Working under strict secrecy provisions, the Commission does not name charities in their annual reports on the charity sector, and, when a charity has its status revoked, does not outline reasons for the revocation to the public.

The legislation under which the ACNC operates also interacts with freedom of information law: in response to a Freedom of Information application submitted in September 2019, the ACNC refused to release basic information about Generations in Jazz Incorporated—including changes made to the charity’s listed board members and charitable purposes on the ACNC website—stating that as the requested information was “protected ACNC information”, it would therefore be an offence to release it to anyone that was not a responsible person or an agent for the charity.

The management board of Generations in Jazz Inc. have not widely advertised the event’s charity status—since July 2016, it has not been mentioned anywhere in event programs or on the event website. The association received just $10,750 worth of charitable donations in 2018, and $25,000 of donations the year before, in 2017.

In the past five years, under Morrison’s direction as Chairman, the board of Generations in Jazz has experienced high turnover, with business partners involved in Morrison’s private business interests—including Dale Cleves, Nigel Adams, Tanya Coxon, and Rick Allert—cycling on and off the board. Others with interests in private businesses belonging to Cleves have also spent time on the board, including Christine and Kent Comely, his daughter and son-in-law. Other board positions have been given to retired school principal Barbara Munt, medical doctor Barney McCusker, and co-founder of the Melbourne advisory firm KordaMentha, Mark Mentha.

Sponsors of Generations in Jazz have included the US State Department, who twice awarded Generations in Jazz $10,000 as part of their international diplomacy grant programs, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and the University of South Australia, who began donating funds to the charity and taking out advertising at the event after the University entered into a contract with the James Morrison Academy of Music and awarded Morrison a position as a Vice-Chancellor's Professorial Fellow.

Generations in Jazz Incorporated lists the main beneficiaries of its charitable activities as youth aged 15-25, yet the majority of revenue generated by the charity is comprised of attendance fees collected from those same youth and the schools they attend. Schools pay significant registration fees to enter—with those fees earning Generations in Jazz $57,380 in 2018—including a requirement that they purchase specific music pieces as stipulated by Generations in Jazz, which brought the charity an additional $43,380 in revenue from schools in 2018.

Individual school students and their families also pay additional attendance fees at rates that range from $290 to $500 for participation in the weekend event.

Despite receiving payments from students and schools worth a total $1.52 million in 2018, and $1.42 min 2017, and working with an annual turnover of just under $2 million dollars, the charity operated at a loss of $51,525 in 2018.

In 2018, Generations in Jazz Inc. spent just $67,000 of its annual $2m in turnover on student scholarships, while paying $28,000 for the travel expenses of "guests", the names of whom the charity refused to release in response to questioning for this article.

Financial records from 2017 and 2018 held by the ACNC state the principal activities of the charity have been the “promotion of jazz music”, with the charity's resources "used to hire the massive tents, to pay for bookkeeping services to account for all income and expenditure and reinvest in assets to secure the future of the festival such as land and equipment purchases."

II. A BENEFICIARY OF GENERATIONS IN JAZZ: THE BARN PALAIS PTY LTD

One of the founders and long-time board members of Generations in Jazz, eighty-year-old Dale Cleves, has long been a financial beneficiary of the high school event, as have members of his family.

Cleves is a South Australian businessman—having established the Dale Cleves Music and Winston Music store chains—and is a Member of the Order of Australia, the third-highest rank in Australia’s civic honours system, an honour he received in 2012 for his service to the tourism and hospitality industry.

Records held by the Government of South Australia from October 2019 show two allotments of the land on which Generations in Jazz is held serve as business addresses for two of Cleves' other private companies, The Barn Palais Pty Ltd and The Barn Properties Pty Ltd, at a combined capital land value of $3.525 million. 

The Barn Palais Pty Ltd is co-owned by his daughter, Christine Comely, who was given a board position at Generations in Jazz Inc. in 2016. Christine Comely's partner, Kent Comely—who is also a co-owner of The Barn Palais—was appointed to the board of Generations in Jazz in late 2019.

For years, The Barn Palais has been subcontracted by Generations in Jazz to provide catering for the high school event, and venues hosting school students have been situated within and around the accommodation site.

"Generations in Jazz Inc. sub contracts The Barn Palais Pty Ltd to provide catering to all registered participants throughout the festival period," read a statement on the Generation in Jazz website until late 2019, removed approximately one month after questioning from this publication. 

Financial records held by the federal charity regulator show Generations in Jazz Inc. paid $289,946 for meals in 2018, and $271,967 for the same in 2017. 

Despite his clear business ties to Generations in Jazz, Cleves was reappointed to the charity’s board as Deputy Chairman late last year—at the same time as Kent Comely’s appointment—having stepped down for a time from late 2014 onwards.

Generations in Jazz Inc. did not respond to a series of questions regarding their financial arrangements with the Cleves family and The Barn Palais Pty Ltd. The charity also refused to confirm whether The Barn Palais had been paid any additional sums for venue hire, or subcontracted to provide accommodation for guests of Generations in Jazz.

The Barn Palais, in OB Flat, South Australia. (Mount Gambier Point)

III. A LAND SALE BETWEEN FRIENDS

In late 2014, one of Cleves’ oldest friends, James Morrison, stepped into the role of Chairman at Generations in Jazz Inc.

Three years later, in late 2017, Morrison oversaw a land sale deal in his role as Chairman, in which Generations in Jazz purchased land from Cleves using charity funds.

Morrison and Cleves have been friends for over 3 decades, according to public statements given to journalists by both men; in 2010, Morrison told a Mount Gambier-based journalist, Graham Greenwood, that he and Cleves became friends "in four minutes flat" when they met in 1968.

After stepping away from the board of Generations in Jazz in late 2014, Cleves immediately joined the board of directors at Morrison’s private company, the James Morrison Academy of Music Pty Ltd, where he remained a board member at the time of the land sale.

The transaction took place while Morrison was on the board of Generations in Jazz with another business partner of his, Nigel Adams. Adams, an accountant, is currently a director of another of Morrison's companies, International Jazz Day Australia Pty Ltd, which was approved last year for charity status by the federal government, and whose employer, GJ McEachern, is the accounting firm employed by Morrison through his James Morrison Academy of Music.

Land records held by the Government of South Australia show that on October 17, 2017, Generations in Jazz Inc. spent $130,000 on the purchase of land belonging to Dale Cleves and another Mount Gambier resident, Sandra Anne Schleter. The land was located in the area of OB Flat, next to Cleves' other businesses addresses.

The land sale transaction was not clearly disclosed by Generations in Jazz Inc. in financial records held by the federal charity regulator. ACNC financial records from 2018 show the transaction was listed under an annual increase in fees paid for an "investment property", with a jump in fees from $12,500 in 2017 to $139,621 in 2018. The increase was accompanied by a note: "Land ex Schleter".

Cleves, Morrison and Generations in Jazz Inc were contacted for comment.

In the same year as the land purchase, Generations in Jazz Inc. recorded legal expenses of $24,058, an expense for which they recorded only $1,800 the following year, in 2018.

Execution of the Cleves land sale was overseen by Mount Gambier law firm DeGaris Lawyers, led by William (Bill) DeGaris. For over a decade, DeGaris held a position on the board of another charity, the Stand Like Stone Foundation, who for years have held their annual fundraising gala at The Barn Palais—the business owned by Cleves.

DeGaris has recently attracted attention for his representation of the politician Troy Bell, of Mount Gambier, who is yet to stand trial for charges of misappropriating more than $2 million of taxpayers' funds. In 2018, Bell lobbied in South Australian Parliament for Generations in Jazz to be given “major event status” by the Government of South Australia.

Generations in Jazz Inc. would not confirm whether the charity’s listed increase in legal fees was related to the Cleves land sale. 

The office of DeGaris Lawyers in Mount Gambier. (Photograph: Matilda Duncan)

IV. EMPTY HALLS

Student attendance numbers at Generations in Jazz have outgrown the capacity of the accommodation available in Mount Gambier and surrounding country towns. To circumvent the problem, the Generations in Jazz Inc. board have for years have overseen unique methods of housing the annual influx of school students.

In return for a fee paid to them by Generations in Jazz Inc., Mount Gambier residents have been turning over private residences—including their own houses—to school groups, as have businesses with empty buildings available, including local sports clubs, or schools with a hall available on the first weekend of May. After assigning students to a private house, the charity has then expected schoolteachers to liaise directly with Mount Gambier residents to organise final details.

Generations in Jazz has claimed that these accommodation options are offered only after "the required checks" have been undertaken, and that allocation of students to halls are in line with "provider regulations"—though the exact nature of those regulations has not been made clear by the charity. "The Generations in Jazz Accommodation team have inspected these venues to conform to overnight accommodation provider regulations," reads a statement from the charity's website.

Yet financial records for the association held by the ACNC from 2017 and 2018 show no funds were listed as having been allocated to accommodation safety checks, or the engagement of any external organisation to conduct regulatory checks. The charity did, however, list $10,000 worth of depreciation in 2018, for $28,000 worth of airbeds they purchased in 2017.

Generations in Jazz did not respond to a series of detailed questions about student accommodation and associated regulations, and refused to clarify whether any records of safety checks having been conducted were held by Generations in Jazz Inc.

Previous promotional materials for Generations in Jazz. (Facebook: Mount Gambier Tourism)

V. STUDENT SAFETY

In November 2019, The Age reported that after a student at the James Morrison Academy of Music had been charged with the rape of another student, the District Court of South Australia approved an application from the student to have his bail altered in order to allow him to travel interstate to perform with James Morrison, who then willingly performed with the student. According to The Age, South Australia Police did not oppose the proposed variation to the student’s bail.

Morrison is the director of the James Morrison Academy, along with his wife, Judi Morrison. Other Academy board members at the time of the student’s travel included the businessman Rick Allert AO, who was a board member of Generations in Jazz from 2010 to 2014, and Dale Cleves, currently the Deputy Chairman of Generations in Jazz. Both men have had venues at Generations in Jazz named after them for several years, and the James Morrison Academy of Music has been involved with, and promoted through, Generations in Jazz since 2015.

The foundations for Morrison's Academy of Music were laid in 2009, when the Generations in Jazz board wrote to schoolteachers around the country promoting the opening of the Generations in Jazz Academy— the predecessor to the James Morrison Academy—in a business move that at the time was characterised as being an extension of the Generations in Jazz weekend event. Morrison announced that Academy's opening himself in 2009, and allowed his name to be used in its promotion until its closure in 2014, after which some of its students transferred to his own private Academy, opened in early 2015 with the assistance of $500,000 from the South Australian Government, provided to him against internal government advice.

The Generations in Jazz board has a separate history of troubling stances on sexual assault and harassment: endorsements of the high school event event from Jeff Kennett, the former Premier of Victoria, continue to be used by Generations in Jazz for promotional purposes in programs and online, despite Kennett's track record of inappropriate comments, including his public dismissal in 2018 of the multiple sexual harassment claims against the Former Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle.

Kennett publicly defended Doyle, saying of the allegations: "it always take two to tango," and "there's been no sexual attacks," despite not being present during any of the alleged incidents. The allegations against Doyle in relation to his role at the Melbourne City Council were investigated by Ian Freckelton QC, with the results of the independent investigation finding that Doyle had sexually harassed both women.

In early 2019, the Guardian reported a confirmation from Victoria Police that Doyle was being investigated for multiple historical sex crime allegations.

In his regular Herald Sun column on May 9, 2018, in a promotional piece he penned about Generations in Jazz, Kennett related the lack of teenage sex he apparently noticed while attending the event, writing: "Name one place where you can find 5100 young Australians between the ages of 16 and 22 years where there is no violence, no gangs, no alcohol and no drugs — and if there was any sex, I didn’t see it!"

Generations in Jazz Inc. did not respond to a series of questions about student safety, and would not disclose whether the charity had any sexual harassment or sexual assault policies in place for its high school event. The association did not respond to further questioning about its use of Kennett’s endorsements.

James Morrison’s sponsor, Schagerl, at Generations in Jazz in 2018. (Facebook: Orchestral Supplies Australia)

VI. CHARITY BENEFICIARIES

Additional businesses associated with Generations in Jazz board members—in addition to Cleves’ Barn Palais and Morrison’s Academy of Music—have taken up the opportunity to benefit from promotion at the event and advertise to the large student audience.

In 2018, the ANZ Bank—with whom Generations in Jazz holds several bank accounts—took tent space to advertise to students at the event, in the same year that Tanya Coxon, the owner of Willow Lending Services in Mount Gambier and previously a Relationship Manager at ANZ Bank, was listed as a board member of Generations in Jazz. Coxon is involved directly with Morrison’s personal business interests, through her role as a director of yet another of James Morrison's other private companies, International Jazz Day Australia Pty Ltd.

ANZ faced criticism that year for questioning a former employee about a rape she experienced as a teenager as part of the bank’s legal strategy to counter a workplace sexual harassment claim. The bank faced further criticism last year after top ANZ executives reportedly harassed a female employee for her hotel room number and “manhandled” her at a conference at a luxury golf resort.

Morrison continues to have a professional association with ANZ, with the bank having recently paid for sponsored media articles promoting Morrison's performance appearances at charity events.

Morrison himself has taken the opportunity to promote a range of his own business interests to high school students, in addition to the Morrison Academy of Music, while serving as the head of Generations in Jazz. Morrison has promoted his own partnership with Austrian instrument brand Schagerl at the event—for several years, the main event pavilion was named in its honour—and hosted functions associated with Generations in Jazz at another of his private businesses, Morrison’s Bar, a licensed venue in Mount Gambier. The bar has been used to host James Morrison Academy of Music students since it opened in 2016, and last year, a cocktail party for Generations in Jazz was held at the venue.

Morrison has also regularly given family members—two of his sons—opportunities to perform at the event, but Morrison would not confirm to this publication whether he or his son had ever collected fees for their appearances. In 2018, Generations in Jazz paid a total of $223,343 in fees for guest musicians.

Morrison did not respond to a series of questions about whether he had used information gained through his charity position at Generations in Jazz to benefit his personal sponsorships and private businesses.

Between 2017 and 2018, Generations in Jazz sold off $78,000 worth of shares in listed companies that had been held by the association. Generations in Jazz Inc. refused to clarify whether the shares had been in companies owned, associated with or run by Morrison, Cleves, Allert or other any other board members of the charity.

The James Morrison Academy of Music, in Mount Gambier, South Australia. (Facebook: Dirk Ullrich)

VII. SILENCE

Generations in Jazz Inc. was contacted multiple times for comment, and board members were given to time to respond a list of detailed questions relating to their activities as a charity over 12 weeks prior to publication of this article.

Australia’s federal charity regulator, the ACNC, refused to provide specific comment in response to a series of questions, though a spokesperson for the charity provided the following statement: “Due to secrecy provisions in the ACNC Act, we are unable to comment on the circumstances of individual charities.”

“The ACNC takes all concerns raised about charities seriously. We will investigate charities where there is evidence that they have failed to comply with their obligations.”

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PUBLISHED AT 11:00 AM (ACST)

View the Cleves land sale documents and relevant company records below: