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EXCLUSIVE
Anti-Indigenous Voice campaigner Warren Mundine has been given 3 million “loan funded shares” in a uranium exploration and mining company — receiving $390,000 in reported remuneration as “non-executive director” in just his first 18 months.
Since being appointed to Aura Energy in December 2021, Mundine has to date received reported remuneration of at least $403,000 for the part-time role, which includes both the value of the 3m shares “recognised” up until June 30 this year ($328,459), and his cash salary of $40,000 a year.
Mundine was issued loan funded shares in Aura Energy in two batches in less than a year, on top of his cash salary, shows the company’s annual report, released last week.
For his part-time role at the mining company, the “anti-elite” campaigner — who, with Senator Jacinta Price, was the face of the “No” campaign against the Voice — has received reported remuneration, including his $40,000 cash salary, of $389,642 in his first 18 months.
Including his cash remuneration since June 30, but not the value of shares “recognised” since then, as they are yet to be calculated, he has received reported remuneration of $403,000 since starting the part-time role.
“For his part-time role, Mundine has received $389,642 in reported remuneration his first 18 months”
The value of the loan funded shares is determined by management in line with accounting standards, but is dependent on the performance of the company’s share price.
The shares have “vesting conditions”, meaning certain requirements must be met before they can be sold, including share price targets of 35c, 50c and $1.00.
The value of the loan funded shares has been calculated by the company “in accordance with the requirements of the accounting standards”, its accounts state.
The shares issued to Mundine have been recorded as an expense of $118,725 in the year to June 30 2021, Mundine’s first six months in the job; and as an expense of $209,734 in the year to June 30 this year.
That’s a total of $328,459 to June 30, Mundine’s first 18 months in the role.
Aura Energy’s annual report, released last week, shows the “share-based payments” to “key management personnel” have caught the eye of its auditor Hall Chadwick, which flagged them as one of two “key audit matters”.
That was because of the “significance of the transactions” to the company’s “financial position and performance”, the company’s auditor said.
It was also because of the “level of judgement required” in “evaluating management’s application” of the accounting standards that stipulate how such payments are to be valued.
The revelations come as Mundine last week — two weeks after the Voice referendum — spruiked on social media another mining company, Fuse Minerals, of which he is chairman.
“As a big believer in mining for prosperity of Australians, I am the chairman of Fuse Minerals, focused on copper and other critical metals projects in the Pilbara and Gascoyne in WA and in Central QLD,” he posted to Twitter/X.
“Join me for a lunch and hear about the upcoming IPO”.
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Mundine’s post last week. Source: Twitter/X
Mundine was appointed to Fuse Minerals in March.
What he is paid for that role is not known as the company has not published any accounts and has not yet issued a prospectus.
(It had planned to list on the ASX this calendar year but its failure to issue a prospectus, in an Initial Public Offering, or IPO, suggests it may be struggling to raise funds).
On January 30, weeks before joining Fuse Minerals, Mundine and Price launched “No” campaign group “Recognise a Better Way”.
Mundine did not respond to requests for comment.
Mundine and Price fronted the Advance network. Source: Advance/Fair Australia
In early May it was announced that entity had “merged” with “Advance”, which was the nerve centre of the No campaign, and comprised of at least seven inter-connected entities.
(The official name of Advance is Advance Aus Ltd).
Mundine and Price were also the two faces of that Advance network, including its campaign brand “Fair Australia”.
The “No” campaign claimed to be a “grassroots” movement of “ordinary Australians” with “mainstream values” and railed against “inner-city elites”.
It was in fact bankrolled by a handful of the nation’s super-rich.
As previously reported, the donors in the most recent filings for Advance for the year to June 2022, boil down to just ten entities.
Of those, all have net assets in the tens of millions of dollars — and at least seven have assets of $100m or more. They are literally the 0.01 per cent.
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The listed donors to Advance. Source: AEC/Various. Graphic: The Klaxon
As revealed by The Klaxon, two of the three directors of “Advance” listed fake residential addresses with regulators; none of the at least seven entities in the shadowy network had a telephone number — and the whole outfit was “run” from a fake “national headquarters” in Canberra’s CBD.
The “No” movement is deeply tied to the mining and fossil fuels sector.
“The “No” movement is deeply tied to the mining and fossil fuels sector”
How The Klaxon broke the story. Source: The Klaxon
Advance has been running an aggressive misinformation campaign in favour of fossil fuels interests, and against renewable energy, called “Not Zero”.
“They call it ’Net Zero’…but there is a cost…and you’re the one who’ll pay,” says Advance’s Not Zero site.
Like the “No” campaign, Advance’s “Not Zero” campaign claims to represent “everyday Aussies” and attacks “inner-city elites”, despite being bankrolled by the super-rich.
“All sides of politics have been infected with this woke climate hysteria,” the site says.
“Instead of representing everyday Aussies like you, our politicians have chosen to pander to big business and inner-city elites”.
Advance pushes climate disinformation via its arm “Not Zero”. Source: Not Zero/Advance
Last week it was revealed Mundine had “sent an extraordinary and expletive-riddled text messages” to a partner of KPMG after it cancelled an invitation for him to give an address following his request for a $10,000 fee.
“I have [had] a fitful of KPMG. I’m going to treat you cunts like you treated me,” he said in one of a series of text messages.
Guardian Australia reports Mundine had been “approached to speak to KPMG’s board and executive staff” in late 2022, but “his speaking fee was considered too high and the offer was formally declined after some negotiation”.
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Source: Aura Energy Annual Report
Mundine, as well as some other directors and “key management personnel” of Aura Energy, have received large numbers of loan funded shares, its accounts show.
Company filings for the ASX-listed company show Mundine has been given 3 million loan funded shares in the group — 2 million of which approved on his first day in the job, December 21, 2021.
They were formally issued to Mundine on April 1 last year.
On 29 November another batch of loan funded shares to directors was “approved by shareholders at the Annual General Meeting”.
They were formally issued on 21 December last year.
Source: Aura Energy Annual Report
Aura Energy issued the locan funded shares to directors and “key management personnel” in two lots.
In each lot, 20% of the shares were marked “tranche 1”, 30% were marked “tranche 2”, and 50 per cent were “tranche 3”.
Tranche 1 shares are “eligible to vest” after 12 months, and when the Aura Energy share prices reaches 50c on “10 days on any 20 sequential trading days”.
Tranche 2 shares are eligible to vest after 24 months and when shares reach 75c (10 days in 20); and tranche 3 shares are eligible to vest after 36 months when shares reach $1.00 (also for 10 days in 20).
The most recent entries in Mundine’s LinkedIn bio. Source: LinkedIn
The shares are “loan issued shares” which means Mundine and other directors are given low interest loans to buy the shares (at $0.25 per share for the first batch and $0.30 for the second).
They are not required to repay those loans if the share price does not rise above those prices.
Once the vesting periods are up, the first one being next month, and if share price hurdles are met, the directors can sell the shares.
They then only repay the interest free loans and keep the profits above the stipulated price ($0.25 and $0.30 for the batches respectively).
The shares issued to Mundine have been recorded as an expense of $209,734 in the year to June 30 2021, Mundine’s first six months in the job; and as an expense of $118,725 in the year to June 30 this year.
That’s a total of $328,459 to June 30, Mundine’s first 18 months in the role.
Aura Energy’s annual report, released last week, shows the “share-based payments” to “key management personnel” have caught the eye of its auditor Hall Chadwick, which flagged them as one of two “key audit matters”.
That was because of the “significance of the transactions” to the company’s “financial position and performance”, the company’s auditor said.
It was also because of the “level of judgement required” in “evaluating management’s application” of the accounting standards that stipulate how such payments are to be valued.
Given the vesting conditions, the value recorded for the shares can vary widely.
The best estimate of the value of the shares granted to Mundine and the directors is the figure “recognised” by the company in its results to June 30, with those calculations “to accounting reporting standards”.
Aura Energy says it valued the shares issued “using a Monte Carlo Simulation”, “taking into account the terms and conditions on which the shares were granted”.
Mundine was also paid an annual director’s salary of $40,000 (he started midway through 2021-22 and so received $21,183 that financial year).
Anti-Voice campaigning by Advance and its arm “Fair Australia”. Source: Advance/Fair Australia
The value of the shares it “recognised” is determined by Aura’s own internal accounting methods.
Aura Energy made a loss of $6.7955m in the year to June 30, and a loss of $3.404m, the year before, its accounts show.
It is not unusual for mining exploration companies to post losses in early years of operation.
It is also not unusual for small mining exploration companies to fail.
Aura Energy has raised tens of millions from the public via various share raisings.
It has accumulated losses of $45.733m and has $39.803m in total equity.
The Melbourne-based mining company has “two key projects” — the “Tires Project” in Mauritania, which it is “preparing for development”; and a proposed “Haggan Project” in Sweden.
Aura Energy’s annual report released last week notes a handful of matters that could impact “the value of the group’s interest in exploration expenditure”.
“The Group’s exploration properties may be subjected to claim(s) under Native Title (or jurisdictional equivalent), or contain sacred sites, or sites of significance to the indigenous people of Sweden and Mauritania,” it states.
“As a result, exploration properties or areas within the tenements may be subject to exploration restrictions, mining restrictions and/or claims for compensation”.
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Advance claims to represent “everyday Aussies” but is in fact bankrolled by the super-rich. Source: Advance
Mundine, 67, has a background in numerous fields, but his appointment to the boards of mining companies appears to be relatively recent.
He was appointed non-executive director of Aura Energy on December 21, 2021 and chairman of Fuse Energy on March 11 this year.
Mundine’s extensive LinkedIn profile lists 76 entries under “experience”, covering five decades, including multiple chair and directorships of Indigenous government boards and business entities, and as Sky News television host (December 2017 – February 2019).
The first mention of Mundine being a director of a mining company is his December 2021 appointment to Aura Energy.
His LinkedIn bio states he was a “committee member” of the Uranium Mining Implementation Committee, which operated in 2012 and 2013 and was established under Queensland’s then Campbell Newman Liberal Government.
A racist advertisement by Advance in the Australian Financial Review. Source: AFR
Mundine was a “non-executive director” of now-defunct uranium mining lobby group the Australian Uranium Association, from May 2009 to March 2013, his bio states. (The lobby group ceased to operate in 2013, when its functions were absorbed by fellow lobby group the Minerals Council of Australia).
Mundine is the 100 per cent owner of Nyungga Black Group Pty Ltd, a “consultancy” he created in 2013, which appears to have strong connections to the mining industry.
“We advise clients on doing business with Indigenous Australians and organisations and in Indigenous communities”, says its website.
The site makes no mention of mining or resources, but Nyungga Black Group Pty Ltd, appears to have strong ties to the mining industry.
Aura Energy’s 2021-22 annual report states Nyungga Black Group Pty Ltd is an “advisory consultancy” which “holds controlling interest in several companies across a diverse range of industries” including “mining resource consulting”.
(The latest annual report does not mention the activities of Nyungga.)
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Mundine’s 3 million shares. Source: Aura Energy FY23 Annual Report
The 2021-22 annual report further states: “Dr Mundine one of Australia’s prominent independent thinkers and a thought leader in the mining sector and nuclear power space as former director of the Australian Uranium Association”.
(In 2009 Mundine was given an honorary doctorate by Southern Cross University, in Lismore NSW).
His bio in Aura Energy’s 2021-22 annual report, as well as his bio as chair of Fuse Minerals, states he “has worked on numerous major resource projects including Fortescue Metals Group, Rio Tinto; BHP; and AGL”.
It provides no specifics about the work undertaken.
The Klaxon’s report: Meet the Bankrollers. Source: The Klaxon
It has been widely reported the Voice “Yes” campaign received substantially more funding, including from major corporates Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, BHP, Rio Tinto, Wesfarmers, Woolworths and Coles.
Yet the “No” campaign, which actively spread disinformation and lies about the Voice, was ultimately successful — at the October 14 referendum 39.94 per cent voted in favour and 60.06 per cent against.
On April 5 Opposition leader Peter Dutton declared the Liberal Party did not support the Voice (although multiple Liberal MPs rejected this stance) and that he would actively campaign against the proposal — which coincided with Advance aggressively ramping-up its disinformation campaign.
Support crashed from levels above 60 per cent of Australians, where levels had hovered for many months, to 44 per cent by referendum day, showed a poll of 4,728 people by Resolve Political Monitor.
Support for the Voice crashed after April 5. Source: Resolve Political Monitor/SMH
There are no laws against lying in federal political advertising or in referendums.
(Advance has a history of lying to the public — before last year’s federal election it ran billboards falsely claiming independents, including now Senator David Pocock, were actually secretly Greens candidates. It also ran advertisements of the Chinese President “voting” for the ALP).
Support for the Voice was very high among Indigenous Australians, with polls earlier this year showing support of over 80 per cent (a YouGov poll in March found 83 per cent Indigenous support and an Ipsos poll in January found support of 80 per cent).
A poll by Resolve published the week before the referendum showed 59 per cent of Indigenous people surveyed supported the Voice.
Ultimately, Indigenous communities overwhelmingly voted Yes to the Voice (including the region where anti-Voice campaigner Jacinta Price’s family is from), with polling catchments where Indigenous Australians form more than 50% of the population recording an average 63 per cent in favour.
Referendum results by polling location. Source: AEC
Of the 11,000 people living in remote areas of the Northern Territory federal seat of Lingiari, 74 per cent reportedly voted yes.
(Higher overall numbers of Indigenous Australians live in larger metropolitan areas, but there they make up a much lower proportion of the population. That makes the remote figures far more indicative of the Indigenous vote because at those polling places there is was vastly higher proportion of Indigenous voters. Regional areas with low Indigenous populations voted heavily against the Voice, data shows).
Advance, which was created in August 2018 as “Freedom Aus Limited”, has just three directors.
They are Matthew Sheahan (who appears to have no online presence before he appeared in connection with Advance about two years ago); a Laura Jean Bradley; and Vicki Dunn — a long-time Liberal MP in the ACT Government.
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The three legal controllers of Australians for Unity, also the three directors of Advance Aus. Source: ACNC/Various. Graphic: The Klaxon
At least seven arms of the Advance network have been identified as part of its “No” campaign.
They are: Advance (Advance Aus Ltd) and its campaign brand Fair Australia (which both claim the Voice goes too far); Recognise a Better Way, which “merged” with Advance; “Not Enough” (a site suggesting the Voice doesn’t go far enough”); Australians for Unity (the “charity” arm of the network) and “Referendum for News” (which falsely holds itself out as an impartial news source).
None had, or has, a telephone number, rather an email address corresponding to each entity or website name. Requests for comment were not responded to.
In political “authorised by” statements in advertisements, and the address given for each of the entities — including the address Advance Aus Ltd has given regulators — is “Level 4, 15 Moore St Canberra City 2601”.
As previously revealed, Neither Advance, or any one of its network of affiliates, operates from the building, and never have — and never has.
It is a “virtual office”, for which the Advance pays (or paid) $85 a month.
Also using that address is Advance’s “Not Zero” arm.
“Authorised by Mathew Sheahan Advance Aus Ltd, Level 4, 15 Moore St Canberra City, ACT 2601,” says the Not Zero site.
(Correction: An earlier version of this article gave a valaution of the shares issued to Mundine at $522,745. The actual figure is $323,459. Mundine’s remuneration to date including his $40,000 cash salary is $403,000).
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Anthony Klan
Editor, The Klaxon
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