The circumstances of the Coalition government’s unheralded transfer of almost half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to a charity that was not even applying for public funding are profoundly puzzling and alarming.

The monumental payment was folded into the May budget, and has rightly been referred by the Senate to a committee. That investigation has been extended for six weeks and is due to report in mid-August.

The ALP and the Greens are agitating for the money to be reversed. That seems premature. We should all await the committee's finding and any recommendations before making any decisions of such magnitude. However, there is a compelling case the money should be frozen until the community can be re-assured.

The government appears to have broken almost every tenet of good public policy in its transfer of $444 million to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Credit:Gary Cranitch

The Auditor-General is also considering a probe. That should be launched as soon as possible, for it appears the government has brazenly broken almost every tenet of public policy and probity in its transfer of $444 million to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a not-for-profit outfit with a full-time staff of six. The organisation was shocked to learn it had, as its chief put it, ‘‘won the lotto’’, and would seem to be of insufficient scale to administer such a huge sum.