Motions

South Australian Justice System

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. F. Pangallo:

That this council—

1. Recognises the role the South Australian justice system plays in upholding law and order in this state by providing a system whereby those that break the law are suitably punished by legislation/laws set by this parliament;

2. Acknowledges the South Australian justice system has failings and injustices have, and continue, to occur;

3. Recognises the nature of our justice system enshrines a burden of proof on the prosecution of either beyond reasonable doubt or on the balance of probabilities that has the potential to result in miscarriages of justice;

4. Acknowledges there have been cases where these thresholds were thought to be satisfied, but later found to have been doubtful at best and unsound at worst; and

5. Calls on the establishment of an Independent Criminal Case Commissioner, to be appointed by the state government, where individuals who believe they have been victims of an injustice within the South Australian justice system can request their case be reviewed (or where a miscarriage of justice is demonstrated by a reasonable doubt of a sound verdict being delivered in the case).

(Continued from 4 June 2025.)

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (22:48): I thank all the members who have stayed on tonight. I do not want to keep you all long, but this is an important issue. In continuing my speech on this motion, I would like to now draw attention to a matter that has been canvassed in this chamber and by a parliamentary committee as well as in the media.

It deals with a fraud committed by a publicly listed company with the knowledge of the South Australian government, which provides this company with funding without proper due diligence and then the abject failure of various agencies within the government, including SAPOL, the Ombudsman, ICAC and the Auditor-General to investigate and correct the egregious reputational harm and financial losses caused to the victim, a bright and entrepreneurial game designer by the name of Justin Daley, even when police had acknowledged that a fraud had been committed. However, what is most puzzling and disturbing about this is that not one entity wants to accept what took place nor make those responsible accountable, from the granting of the dubious government funding through to the lies and cover-ups at the highest levels.

Mr Daley, as late as last month, continued to bring his fraud to the attention of the Department of State Development's Head of Commercial and Governance, the Department for Infrastructure and Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis, the Premier, Minister Andrea Michaels and Paul Featherstone, the police officer who had been leading the investigation and believed there was fraud, only to mysteriously drop it because he is alleged to have told Justin he was pressured from above. Interesting. Justin has not had one response, bar one from Featherstone, who said it would be interesting to see where his latest complaint went. This is an unacceptable cover up of corruption in government. It is a hornet's nest, a scandal, one that I had hoped would be followed up by inquisitive investigative media reporters.

The company at the centre of this scandal is Mighty Kingdom, and it has a notorious corporate governance history. At the heart of this disturbing white collar crime is Mr Daley, a young man who refused to give up his quest to correct the injustice he endured and which has cost him a considerable amount of money through the company's dishonest conduct, estimated to be more than $600,000 in lost game revenues, and his own expenses in seeking justice.

Anyone else trying to fight government and corporate corruption would have given up a long time ago, but not Justin, and all credit to his resilient perseverance. Members in this chamber, the Hon. Dennis Hood, the Acting President, and the Hon Tammy Franks, know Justin, and we have all advocated on his behalf, seeking answers over several years, only to be met with the usual bureaucratic and government stonewalls of resistance.

Justin has been refused access to all documentation he was seeking through freedom of information from the Department of State Development. They were counting on the weight of government power to intimidate him and that nobody would take his claims seriously and he would go away. He is not going anywhere until his fight is finally settled. He is getting closer. He now has all the documentary evidence to support what he has been pleading over the past seven years. I am highly impressed by his excellent investigative skills and I admire his perseverance and courage.

Let's go to the start of this saga in February 2018. Mighty Kingdom had a close association with the Weatherill Labor government and the Department of State Development. The company commits fraud by wilfully deceiving the government, claiming they owned something they did not to receive a government grant—taxpayers' money of $480,000. It was to be used to further develop and bring to market a clever game app developed by Mr Daley called Kitty Keeper.

January 2019—and all this is documented—the government is notified of that deception. The government requests the grant recipient, Mighty Kingdom, prove with evidence their ownership, but the recipient does not, and the government does not bother to follow up the request. Again, this is documented. June 2020—documented again—the government is notified again of the fraud, this time by another government agency, SASBC, which has bothered to look into the matter. The government requests evidence of their Mighty Kingdom ownership a second time, but the recipient deceptively withholds the evidence the government has asked for.

This is also documented: the government, DSD, knowing the recipient is withholding evidence, does not bother to follow up that either. Instead, the government drop the matter and say it is impossible and inappropriate for them to look into the alleged fraud, the government having to investigate itself. It begs the question: why, with all the knowledge the DSD possessed about the fraud, was this matter not referred to SAPOL? It was reported in The Advertiser that DSD have a protocol for this very situation, and I quote:

In cases where potentially fraudulent applications are identified, those matters are referred to SA Police for further investigation and potential prosecution.

It is documentation that now shows Mighty Kingdom lied about their ownership of the intellectual property in the Kitty Keeper game to secure a $480,000 grant. Documents also show the department that awarded the grant should have known that Mighty Kingdom had been untruthful. Mr Daley contends that the media and the Small Business Commissioner were misled in the process to minimise any media reporting on the matter.

This from ABC media in 2021: there was a statement quoting a state government spokesperson as saying that the investigation by the department concluded all aspects of the contract had been complied with and no further action was required. That was false. Firstly, there are still missing reports. Secondly, the matter was not investigated, as acknowledged in DSD Chief Executive Officer Adam Reid's letter to Mr Daley on 28 September 2020, stating it was 'not possible or appropriate' for him to adjudicate on the matter.

ABC media, again in 2021, reported that Minister David Pisoni had referred Mr Daley's concerns to the department for investigation. Mr Daley had taken this matter to every department, written to every politician and sought help from anyone he could reach out to over the past seven years. Why had this not been investigated you might ask. Supposedly, it had.

SAPOL investigated the fraud allegations after the Hon. Tammy Franks requested they do so in 2022. SAPOL said they could see fraud, but the matter would be referred to the Ombudsman and ICAC for further investigation since it seemed the government was involved. Neither bothered to respond. Then earlier this year, when the new evidence became available, Mr Daley returned to SAPOL hoping they would reopen the matter.

It was explained to Mr Daley that the victim in this matter was the South Australian government and that the government would be 'uncooperative'. Mr Daley asked, 'Wouldn't you proceed with the investigation based on the evidence and see how it progressed rather than assuming they would be uncooperative?' According to Mr Daley, the SAPOL detective who investigated the fraud for six months responded with:

Well no because the very first thing is to secure a victim's statement. The Govt would NOT comply as it is bad for their reputation. Can you imagine the government admitting that they didn't even attempt to do their due diligence on a significant grant and that it was a total waste of tax-payers money? If any investigation was attempted, it would be a non-event in the first week.

That was from a SAPOL detective. Let that sink in. The Advertiser recently reported on a grant fraud that was picked up by the Department of State Development. The matter was immediately reported to SAPOL for further investigation as per the department's protocol. SAPOL went on to prosecute a South Australian woman over a $16,000 grant fraud, yet Mr Daley had reported the $480,000 Kitty Keeper grant fraud to the Department of State Development. First, in 2019, they did nothing. In September 2020, Mr Reid contacted Mr Daley to tell him that:

I do not consider it appropriate for me to adjudicate on what appears to be a genuine dispute between you and Mighty Kingdom as to the ownership of the intellectual property in the game.

They did nothing again. In fact, totally missing the point. In a statement provided to me, Mr Daley says:

The department has again been looking at this matter since October last year. Still nothing.

The department and Mr Reid knew there are contracts showing Mr Daleys ownership of the Kitty Keeper Game.

Contracts Mighty Kingdom had but refused to present to the department when requested in the grant breach notice they received in 2020.

The department knows there are two sets of financial reports for the Kitty Keeper game, with a difference between the two of approximately $1.4 million. The department has not followed protocol and referred documented fraud to SAPOL.

SAPOL has acknowledged the evidence of a $480,000 grant fraud, but it will not do anything because it will, at best, make the government look bad and at worst proves maladministration and the cover-up of the grant fraud by the Department for State Development.

SAPOL have alluded that the current Attorney-General is also the minister who signed off on the $480,000 grant to Mighty Kingdom, and that alone would present a problem to the investigation.

SAPOL have a duty to investigate the fraud Mighty Kingdom perpetrated against the Department for State Development and South Australian taxpayers. If there is a greater fraud uncovered, it should then be referred to another agency for further investigation.

SAPOL should act without fear or favour, but clearly they are not.

Premier Malinauskas and Minister Koutsantonis are aware of this new information but will not respond to the dozens of emails sent.

That statement was sent to me by Justin Daley. Mr Daley took Mighty Kingdom to the Magistrates Court in March this year because they had stolen revenue from the Kitty Keeper game. Judgement was made in his favour when Mighty Kingdom failed to show up. This victory in court also proved his ownership of the Kitty Keeper game at a time Mighty Kingdom were telling the government they owned it. Mr Daley has written to the Auditor-General seeking they investigate the matter, given the court's decision. They are yet to respond.

Mr Daley has just filed another matter with the court against Mighty Kingdom, seeking the return of his game as per the contracted agreement and damages. He maintains Mighty Kingdom remains in breach of the agreement they had with him for the return of the game. He says Mighty Kingdom is also in breach of the financial conditions for the Kitty Keeper grant. Mighty Kingdom has been continually disingenuous and deceptive towards Mr Daley and show no interest in fulfilling their contracted obligations.

Their most recent ex-chair, Duncan Gordon, a disgraced company director, tried to coerce Mr Daley by offering the return of the game if he dropped all legal matters and did a media statement around an amicable conclusion. He acknowledged Justin had been wronged. This is supported by a series of emails and text messages, which I will seek to table later on. The return of the game is contracted and unconditional. Duncan Gordon is just the most recent in a long line of board chairs and members at Mighty Kingdom that, while having been fully briefed and aware of the lack of the game ownership, have failed to correct the associated crimes and perform their fiduciary duty, which is paramount for a publicly owned and listed company.

Gordon remains as a director on the board, even though he was recently disgraced. In February this year, the Federal Court granted a default judgement of almost $1 million to the liquidators of AE Charter and Rossair against Mr Gordon, who was a director of those companies, finding that he either was aware or should have been aware that the companies were trading insolvently. There has been a litany of departures at board level—11 in less than two years, which is quite concerning. Among them, former ABC head Michelle Guthrie, who resigned soon after telling a meeting of shareholders that Mighty Kingdom had burned through almost $30 million of investors' money, but had nothing to show for it.

No games developed to market because the gaming industry in South Australia, long-touted by the Weatherill government as being part of his GigCity digital economy revolution, has all but collapsed and with it, tens of millions of dollars in investments and government grants. Mighty Kingdom has benefited from overly generous state and federal digital offset tax claims of up to 40 per cent. It continues to make share offers, further diluting the shareholding of investors, but for what? It actually has nothing to show for it.

Where has all the money gone? What is really going on with this public company? Why is Mighty Kingdom not under investigation by financial regulators as well as integrity agencies? Is it any wonder nobody in government wants to lift the lid and peer under it for fear of what may be found? This matter demands to be investigated fully, without fear or favour. I also have a large bundle of indexed documents and emails in support of Mr Daley's search and research for the truth and for justice, which I have referenced in this address. They provide the necessary and accurate information to justify the need for an investigation, and I seek leave to table them.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I now conclude my remarks.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. B.R. Hood.