The work of Melbourne-based charity Voithame Tin Ellada (VTE), which has been requesting donations of cash and clothes from Australia’s Greek community, is to be raised in the Victorian parliament.

Revelations surfaced this week after The Guardian reported that the Australian branch of Greece’s ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party has been raising funds to send on to Greece, under the banner of an unregistered charity.

Following publication of the article, state Liberal MP Nicholas Kotsiras told Neos Kosmos he would be raising the matter in the next sitting of parliament.
“I’d like the authorities to take a good look at it,” he said.

“Our aim should be to take away the oxygen of the group so they disappear as quickly as they appeared.”

VTE’s Facebook page (taken down after publication of The Guardian article) showed workers for the charity wearing Golden Dawn inscribed T-shirts.

A Christmas fundraising drive – asking donors to deposit cash into a Greek bank account – was reportedly launched on the page last week by Golden Dawn’s Australian representative, Ignatius Gavrilidis. The donations requested purported to help Greek citizens afflicted by the financial downturn.

Mr Gavrilidis confirmed to the Guardian that VTE was affiliated with Golden Dawn and money raised went towards providing food for people in Greece who could prove Greek citizenship.

“We buy the food direct from the producers and Golden Dawn takes delivery of the goods … We use their labour, they hand out the food where it’s appropriate,” he said.

Golden Dawn became the third-largest political force in Greece after elections in May and has increasingly turned to diaspora branches to build support and assist fundraising.

Their Australian spokesman said that VTE was originally set up in November 2013 by Greek Australians not associated with the ultra-right party.

“But these individuals failed to attract support, and I offered my assistance, and they were more than happy to get it off the ground.”

Mr Gavrilidis added that the charity had been absorbed into Golden Dawn’s Australian branch early in 2014.

“We decided to aid VTE and back them up, and we became VTE ourselves.” A shipping container of clothing collected in Australia by the charity was sent to Athens in March.

Alex Kakafikas, a spokesman for the Melbourne Anti-Fascist Initiative, told Neos Kosmos that while he understood the community’s motivation to donate to VTE, “there is no guarantee that any donated money or goods will go to where they claim”.

“The other problem regarding this ‘charity’, is that it is merely a public relations front to whitewash [Golden Dawn’s] role in racially and politically motivated violence.”

Mr Kakafikas added: “In the current climate of hysteria surrounding ‘terrorism’, why should Golden Dawn and its front VTE be spared the same attention by the authorities [that is] given to Islamic charities?

In a statement provided to Neos Kosmos the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria said that apart from the VTE charity’s “affiliation to a xenophobic political party,” the organisation had a “selective distribution process by making outrageous claims that all items and funds collected will be provided only to those citizens of Greece who hold a national ID card proving their Greek nationality.”

GOCMV’s statement added that it was “the duty of the relevant authorities to investigate the group and its operations.

“Illegal entities operating under the pretence of charitable status are unacceptable in our multicultural society and should be exposed for their deceptive conduct.”

The Victorian Government’s Consumer Affairs department has confirmed that VTE is not registered as a charity.

Director of Consumer Affairs, Dr Claire Noone told Neos Kosmos that under the Fundraising Act 1998, Consumer Affairs has “a range of statutory powers to facilitate an investigation into contraventions of the Act, including fundraising whilst unregistered”.