Whoever could have seen this coming? A virtue-signalling Labor government puts out a bottomless barrel of taxpayers’ money and the rent-seeking flies swoop thick and fast and get grotesquely fat.
I mean, really, could anyone have foreseen this? Alright, alright, put your hands down, all of you.
From the moment Julia Gillard announced the National Disability Insurance Scheme, we all knew exactly what was going to happen. Demand-driven funding and a model that allowed just about anything to come under the rubric of ‘disability care’… the result was as predictable as it is lamentable.
Dodgy GPs are touting ‘autism’ diagnoses, at five grand a pop, as a guaranteed ticket to a lifetime of no-questions-asked welfare. Cruises, Thermomixes and even prostitutes have all been racked up as legitimate NDIS-covered expenses. Recidivist sex offenders with a ‘mild intellectual disability’ are trousering million-dollar packages.
And that’s just the recipients. The ‘providers’ are even more brazen.
Supercars, cryptocurrency, a Fijian resort, signed basketball jumpers and a country pub. That’s how one dodgy NDIS housing provider spent investor cash, instead of the promised houses for people with disabilities.
I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Like fellow Queensland NDIS housing boondoggle Saorsa Health, the ALAMMC report shows a damning picture of the wild west of NDIS housing investment, where dodgy developers have been allowed to roam free and prey on investors – promising 45 per cent returns for doing good, but delivering nothing in return.
The BDO report is heavily redacted as ASIC is still investigating key parts of the group’s financing and operations – including [ALAMMC director David McWilliams’] relationship with Saorsa Health boss Aiden Garrison. They were once co-directors of a company, according to ASIC records.
But even if the worst bits remain behind a veil of secrecy, there’s still plenty to outrage investors who punted their savings on McWilliams’ promises of extraordinary returns for investing in housing for people with disabilities.
Did nothing about that last sentence not raise any flags for investors? Well, probably not when the government was openly throwing billions at the NDIS. Still, it brings to mind Derryn Hinch’s old adage that con men wouldn’t have a market if people weren’t greedy.
The ALAMMC group was supposed to be building dozens of units for people with special needs. The group raised almost $92m, promising investors they’d get 10 per cent interest a year, plus a bonus 15 per cent when the property was built and sold off.
As they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Instead McWilliams and his wife, Laura Fullarton, splashed cash on a lifestyle most of their retired investors could only dream of.
Companies in the group bought supercars – a McLaren 720S coupe, worth a cool half-million new, an Aston Martin F1, and a Porsche 718.
There’s also an “office” in a light industrial area on the Gold Coast, decked out with a basketball court, signed jerseys from NBA stars such as Shaquille O’Neal, and video game consoles. It wasn’t used for client meetings, of course […]
ALAMMC also “invested” $6.8m in a Fijian resort development. It’s possible that would have eventually helped give NDIS participants a place to go on holiday, but Margin Call has its doubts. The place was never built, according to the BDO report, so the question is largely moot.
Then there’s the signed Ed Sheeran guitar. No doubt that was a legitimate ‘disability’ expense: perhaps on the assumption that you’d have to be developmentally impaired to want an Ed Sheeran guitar.
BDO’s investigations also reveal that McWilliams had an extensive collection of counterfeit watches. It’s not clear whether the businessman thought they were real and was himself ripped off along the way, or whether they were just bling designed to impress mug punters about the success of his business.
And you’d have to be a mug to fall for this:
Mountain Asset Partners owned a website, and bought plenty of ads on Google and Facebook promoting “NDIS Investment Opportunities. Fixed Income Property Projects with Returns of 10 per cent”, as one example.
Click the link, fill in a form, someone will be in touch […]
Here’s the thing – there’s no evidence that Mountain and Armada broke the law.
Still, why wouldn’t mugs fall for scams like this, when the government was throwing buckets of money, no questions asked, at the NDIS.
How could anyone have foreseen it all going tits-up like this?
