Godwin Grech
| Godwin Grech | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | University of Melbourne |
| Occupation | Australian public servant |
| Years active | 1989–2009 |
| Parent(s) | Sam and Guisa Grech |
Godwin Grech is a former Australian Treasury official, best known for his role in the centre of the Utegate scandal in 2009.
Grech grew up in Melbourne as the son of Maltese immigrants. After graduating from the University of Melbourne with a Commerce degree, Grech moved to Canberra to join the Australian Public Service.
His public service career was split between the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Treasury. For the most part, Grech was close to the policy action of the Howard and Rudd Governments, and had a reputation as being highly diligent and reliable. However, in Prime Minister and Cabinet he handled a controversial Western Bulldogs grant in 2004, and in the Department of the Treasury, he was in the middle of the 2009 OzCar affair, in which he forged an email to imply special treatment of Labor political donors. The OzCar affair forced his retirement from the public service in 2009.
Grech's parents were born in Malta in the 1930s and migrated to Australia. Godwin attended St. Paul's College graduating from the school in 1984. Godwin went on to study commerce at the University of Melbourne.
Directly after graduating university, Grech joined the Australian Public Service. In the late 1990s Grech had executive assignments in Treasury's markets group, dealing with financial institutions and systems and with competition and market access policy. In 1998, he was briefly seconded to work in Joe Hockey's office when Hockey was financial services minister, although the secondment lasted only two weeks due to personal differences with another staffer. By 2003, Grech was general manager of Treasury's competition and consumer policy division.
From June 2003 to July 2008, Grech worked in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. At Prime Minister and Cabinet, he advised on employment, business conditions, competition and consumer affairs. In 2004 at the Department, shortly before the 2004 federal election, Grech was responsible for handling a grant to the Western Bulldogs Football Club, a club he supported, for rebuilding Whitten Oval, the training and administrative headquarters for the club. The grant was part of the Howard Government's "pitch to the working class vote", and Grech was, in his own words, "the primary officer that managed and facilitated the Federal Government’s response to the submission by the Western Bulldogs Football Club regarding the proposed re-development of the Whitten Oval. This included oversight and personally briefing the then Prime Minister, the Hon. John Howard, and his office, on the size, scope and overall merit of the project."
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