Another request to Tony Abbott to get Peta Credlin to ask Citipointe for MOUs

Chita (left) and Rosa (right) during a rare home visit in 2013. Their mother, Chanti, is behind them, pointing.

The Hon. Tony Abbott, MP


Prime Minister


Parliament House


CANBERRA ACT 2600

9^th April 2014

Dear Prime Minister

The automatically generated response to my letter to you of 7^th April reads:

“The matters raised in your correspondence relate to the portfolio responsibilities of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. As such, the Prime Minister has referred your correspondence for a response.”

What is the point in referring my letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs when she (or those in her office whose job it should be) refuse to ask Brisbane-based Citipointe church a simple question:

“Please provide the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with copies of the MOUs that Citipointe believes gave the church the right to remove Rosa and Chita from their family in 2008 and detain them contrary to the express wishes of their parents, Chanti and Chhork to this day.”

Why is your government, at every level from the Australian Embassy in Cambodia,  through ACFID and up to your own office, protecting Citipointe church by refusing to ask for documents pertaining to the legality or illegality of the church’s removal of Rosa and Chita in 2008?

Please do not send me another automatically generated letter referring this letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Ask Peta Credlin to get on the phone to Citipointe with a simple request:

“Please supply the office of the Prime Minister with copies of the 2008 and 2009 MOUs in the next two hours.”

Unless Citipointe chooses to refuse this request (and incur the wrath of Peta), it is one that would take five minutes to achieve – scanning the MOUs and sending them electronically.

If Citipointe, in receipt of tax-deductible Australian dollars through AusAID approved Global Development Group,  is under no obligation to prove the legality of its activities in Cambodia, and the same applies for other AusAID approved NGOs, it should come as no surprise that Australian tax-payers are being rorted by unscrupulous NGOs such as the ‘SHE Rescue Home.’

Yours sincerely

James Ricketson