The man in charge of regulating Australian charities, Gary Johns, has accused Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion of “poor form” and of including “numerous errors” in a letter, as Johns digs in his heels over his controversial views on the acknowledgement of country.

Johns, head of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), has also claimed that “very senior legal sources” and Aboriginal friends support his view that including the standard-form acknowledgement of country in commission staff’s email signatures could open the commission to claims of bias.

Johns told his staff last year that they should not include the standard Australian Public Service acknowledgement of country in their email signature blocks, which begins “we acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians”. Johns argued that because the commission oversees both Indigenous and non-indigenous charities, the acknowledgement opened it to accusations of bias.

Documents obtained by BuzzFeed News under freedom of information laws reveal that over the last year Johns has stood his ground on the issue even in the face of a chorus of advice — including from Scullion — that the acknowledgement does not raise bias concerns.

Following Johns’ Oct. 2018 Senate Estimates appearance, when he faced sceptical questioning on the issue from Labor senator Jenny McAllister, Scullion wrote and assured him that acknowledging country raised no perception of bias.

But in a blistering response, Johns charged Scullion with discourtesy and mischaracterising Johns’ directive to staff.

In a reply dated Dec. 20, Johns accused Scullion of “poor form” because he had tabled his letter with parliament two weeks before it reached Johns. That meant BuzzFeed News published its contents before Johns had read it.



“More troubling is that your letter contains numerous errors,” Johns went on. He insisted that his staff were “free to make a personal acknowledgement” — using the personal pronoun “I” instead of “we” – which meant he had not ruled out acknowledgements entirely.