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Utegate
Utegate (also known as the OzCar affair) refers to a 2009 controversy in Australian federal politics, revolving around allegations made by then Federal Leader of the Opposition and Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull, that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and/or the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, had acted improperly on behalf of a Queensland car dealer who was seeking financial assistance from a government agency called OzCar, and that they had misled Parliament. Central to this claim was evidence by Treasury official Godwin Grech before a Senate inquiry in June 2009 that a Prime Ministerial adviser had emailed him asking for preferential treatment for the dealer. When the email's text became known, the Prime Minister labelled the email a forgery, and a subsequent police investigation confirmed that the email was never sent. On 4 August 2009, Grech admitted to forging the email. The Auditor-General was also ordered to conduct an investigation. It found no evidence of corruption by the Pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Godwin Grech
Godwin Grech is a former Australian Treasury official, best known for his role in the centre of the Utegate scandal in 2009. Grech grew up in Melbourne as the son of Maltese immigrants. After graduating from the University of Melbourne with a Commerce degree, Grech moved to Canberra to join the Australian Public Service. His public service career was split between the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Treasury. For the most part, Grech was close to the policy action of the Howard and Rudd Governments, and had a reputation as being highly diligent and reliable. However, in Prime Minister and Cabinet he handled a controversial Western Bulldogs grant in 2004, and in the Department of the Treasury, he was in the middle of the 2009 OzCar affair, in which he forged an email to imply special treatment of Labor political donors. The OzCar affair forced his retirement from the public service in 2009. Life and career Grech's parents were born in Malta in the 1930s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |