The head of Australia’s online safety watchdog failed to disclose her attendance at a secretive, all-expenses-paid tech-policy and strategy retreat funded by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest. MLex has learned that Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant was among a host of local and international tech-policy luminaries who attended the multi-day event at Forrest’s Minderoo Station, a remote pastoral property in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, in mid-August 2024. In a statement to MLex, a spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner confirmed the US-born Inman Grant’s travel to and from Perth and Minderoo Station and accommodation at the site were “only available from the organisers … [Forrest’s not-for-profit] Minderoo Foundation. The spokesperson said Inman Grant would now make a disclosure on the office’s gifts and benefits register.
The head of Australia’s online-safety watchdog failed to disclose her attendance at a secretive, all-expenses-paid tech-policy and strategy retreat funded by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest. MLex has learned that Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant was among a host of local and international tech-policy luminaries who attended the multi-day event at Forrest’s Minderoo Station, a remote pastoral property in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, in mid-August 2024.
Forrest, who has been engaged in legal clashes with Meta Platforms in both Australia and the US, is believed to have been present at the event.
In a statement to MLex, a spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner confirmed the US-born Inman Grant’s travel to and from Perth and Minderoo Station and accommodation at the site were “only available from the organisers … [Forrest’s not-for-profit] Minderoo Foundation."
The spokesperson said Inman Grant would now make a disclosure on the office’s gifts and benefits register.
“The commissioner … accepted an invitation to attend the Artificial Intelligence Summit, an event including more than 30 government, academic and technology leaders in AI at Minderoo Station, Western Australia,” the spokesperson’s statement said.
“Discussions covered technology policy, safety and regulatory implications from the rapid proliferation of AI,” the statement said.
Inman Grant didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the event, the eSafety spokesperson said.
The Minderoo Foundation hasn’t responded to MLex’s requests for comment.
Inman Grant’s failure to disclose her attendance at the Minderoo retreat appears to be in breach of the Australian public service’s gifts and hospitality rules.
Under the guidance of the Australian Public Service Commission, government officials are required to disclose gifts or hospitality with a value greater than A$100 ($62.2).
According to the eSafety Gifts and Benefits Register for the period July 1 to Sept. 30, 2024, Inman Grant declared one gift — the cost of her attendance at a conference in Sydney run by the Australian Strategy Policy Institute on Sept. 2, valued at A$2200.
There are no other declarations for the period.
The office of the eSafety Commissioner comes under the umbrella of the country’s media watchdog, the Australian Communications & Media Authority. It describes itself as “the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online.”
Inman Grant has headed up the agency since January 2017, during which time she has led several high-profile regulatory campaigns — including an April 2024 lawsuit against Elon Musk’s social media platform X for its failure to delete videos of a violent stabbing incident in Western Sydney.
Most recently, the former Microsoft government-affairs manager has offered a qualified endorsement of the Australian government’s controversial plan to ban social media sites for children under the age of 16.
In November 2019, Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation created a tech policy arm called the Frontier Technology Initiative, following the convening of two AI governance conferences.
According to its original webpage, which is no longer accessible, the Frontier Technology Initiative was created to “advance education on the societal impact of new technologies and technological change.”
“The initiative works to address the widespread violation of human rights associated with the unfettered use and abuse of personal information in the tech ecosystem,” the original web page said.
The foundation provided grants and donations to academic institutions including Oxford, Cambridge and the University of California, Los Angeles, along with New York University and the University of Western Australia.
However, in 2023, information about the think tank was removed from Mindaroo’s website. Earlier this year, the Frontier Technology Initiative’s director, Emma McDonald, left the foundation for a job as a lawyer at Seven West Media.
In 2022, Forrest took the unusual step of bringing a criminal lawsuit against Meta over its publication of celebrity scam ads featuring the images of prominent Australians — including Forrest.
The criminal case was discontinued by federal prosecutors earlier this year. However, a related case against Meta is now unfolding in a US court, in California.
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