Thorpe pulls plug on charity
Swimming great Ian Thorpe has blamed Aboriginal education funding cuts from successive Federal governments for the demise of the charity he founded at the peak of his success.
Thorpe said the "devastating" cuts took their toll, ironically after one of its literacy projects was hailed as a success story by the then Gillard government.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission records show liquidator TPH Insolvency was appointed to Ian Thorpe's Fountain for Youth last week. Thorpe established it in 2000 to champion indigenous literacy and health in remote areas.
In an interview with Michael Parkinson last year, Thorpe said the charity was "starting to see results".
"When we started doing programs illiteracy was 97 per cent in one of the communities," he said. "This is in Australia."
The decision to wind up the charity was explained in a letter by Thorpe and honorary chief executive Jeff McMullen. It said the Australian Government had appeared to be behind reform.
"Ironically, as the devastating indigenous education cuts began around the end of 2012, the Literacy Empowerment Project was being hailed on the Federal government's own website as an outstanding success," they said.
"Many years of sharp Budget cuts to indigenous education programs and organisations have convinced us we must work directly with our Aboriginal partners and not compete for the meagre funding available from public and corporate donations."
Thorpe was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Shadow indigenous affairs minister Shayne Neumann said it was unfair for past Labor governments to be "lumped in for the criticism". "Certainly under this current Government we saw this Budget cut $530 million from indigenous affairs and a whole range of areas copped it," he said.
A spokeswoman for Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said Mr Neumann was being "deliberately misleading".
"There is a significant re- investment in indigenous affairs in the Budget, including $46.5 million for the remote school attendance strategy," she said.
Documents show the organisation was solvent when a liquidator was appointed.
