 Hello everyone. So based on the events of the last few weeks and some of the claims that have been laid against me, I've decided to make a video to give my side of the story in more detail on the situation with AV. It would have been better to sort this out privately with Paul and Asile, however this has been made public. So I'm sorry to the people who don't want to see this and for those who this doesn't interest just click off the video now. But for those who are interested there's a possible solution to all this at the end so stay tuned for that. I recently wrote a statement on this matter that perhaps didn't give enough detail to satisfy the questions raised so I decided to go into more depth in this video. The reason for responding first in the document was to try to mitigate the public reach that a video response would yield as I feel public infighting between activists isn't a good idea. From my recollection of my conversations with Paul and Asile we had three chats that went for around four hours in total. This all took place about three months before Paul and Asile brought out their first podcast to the public. But anyways there's a lot to go through so I'll try to make this as concise and to the point as I can. On June 17th this year I received an email from a large donor who helps out with many projects in the movement asking for my help. This donor has been instrumental in helping to fund so much of the animal rights movement and has been a blessing to so many especially for the animals. I agreed to talk with the donor the following evening and before we talked he cc'd me into some emails containing AV's 2020 budget of 1.5 million USD, a report containing testimonials from those who have concerns about how AV is managed, a long list of groups which had left AV, and emails from BLM supporters who are upset about a post made by AV. I took the call with the donor and he seemed very stressed and wanted my help to get financial transparency from Paul and Asile before he could continue funding them as he had many doubts in his mind about AV. He had a number of conversations sometime prior with Paul and Asile about the controversial BLM post on AV's social media. He also raised concerns with them about them swearing and some other matters he was worried about. The donor felt that this conversation didn't go well and he felt communications between them were breaking down. The donor's request to get me involved left me taken aback and I did say maybe it's not a good idea for me to be involved because I did feel a little out of my depth with the nature of this request. But the donor's arguments were persuasive stating that I'm a friend and supporter of AV, I have knowledge of what goes on on the ground in terms of street activism, I'm familiar with their work, I can cross check between groups and with their staff and that I've been conservative with the budgets that I've asked for from him and that I care about the movement and the animals deeply. The donor expressed that he didn't know who else to ask as anyone else might be accused of being an outsider to AV. I felt almost in a position that I couldn't refuse as this donor has been a blessing to the animals and has been there to help myself and so many others in the movement. So after my chat with the donor the donor emailed Paul in a sale stating that he had asked me to be involved and following that Paul messaged me this. In this screenshot Paul shows that he had already felt that their funding was going to be cut so the narrative I'm seeing that I set out to defund AV is just not true. Paul knew it was already a strong possibility. I was involved to try to resolve the matter and help AV to continue receiving their funding. So going into this chat I felt uncomfortable and in a very awkward position. I explained to Paul that I was tasked with getting financial transparency from them in order to continue their funding and instill confidence back in the donor. They had already received around half of their 1.5 million US dollar budget for the year. Paul and I discussed the donor's reasons for losing confidence which included the BLM post controversy, email sent to the donor criticizing AV and the donor's uncertainty about AV's finances. At this time access to accounts was not asked for this was just an initial conversation to see how we could come to a solution. Now this first chat felt a little rocky in terms of cooperation as Paul felt it wasn't fair that they were being asked for a level of transparency that other orgs were not having to give. I said I thought this was a fair point but I explained that the donor was not as concerned with other orgs as he felt they were open within without him having to ask and there was AV being scrutinized at this time because of the controversy and the donor needed his doubts about AV specifically cleared up. The main thing that left me confused in the first chat was when Paul stated that another aspect of what I was seeing in their budget was that they were putting money away for a rainy day. They said that they sense the day may come that their funding could be cut as they are not as agreeable as others in the movement so they were doing the smart thing by putting money away so that AV could continue. I responded by saying if you're putting funds away and not telling the donor it might not look good. Paul then responded by saying we're not doing that it's just something to consider the money would obviously be used. So Paul continued to make a point of the unfairness of the request again stating that other orgs were not being scrutinized like this so why should they be? Paul and I also expressed that their relationship was breaking down with the donor because they didn't agree with some of his requests and because of this they said they had been preparing to become financially independent. Another thing Paul said to me was Joey you should not do any more than is required of you and that going at this from an accountant's perspective would not be necessary at this point stating again that other orgs were not being audited by the donor to this degree. I said to them you don't have anything to hire so let's just get it done. At the end of this conversation Paul said that in a way he was grateful it was me involved and not someone else. He also felt it was unfair that I was brought into this as they could both sense how uncomfortable I was about it. I finished by saying that I felt there are other people in the movement who wanted AV cancelled but I wanted to help them to continue to receive their funding from this donor. So in this initial conversation I felt there were many things that weren't clear possibly because of miscommunications but it left me feeling a little unsure about whether or not Paul and Asai would cooperate with the donor. After speaking to the donor after this conversation he emphasized he just wanted detailed financial transparency in order to gain confidence to continue AV's funding. I told the donor about the reserve of funds Paul mentioned and the donor said having a reserve is fine just let me know how much there is. So on my second chat I wanted to clarify my comment about them storing funds away particularly when I said it would not look good. I reassured them and that it's fine to have a reserve as a large org as long as they were forthcoming with the donor about how much they had. Paul then told me the money for the whole year hasn't come in yet so we actually don't have a reserve. He did repeat this point throughout our call that they did not have a reserve and Asai made this point as well but in their second podcast I was confused to hear Paul say I never said we don't have a reserve. I never said that we don't have a reservoir in fact Joey got really upset and caught up over the fact that I said that we did have a reservoir so I don't understand this. You see in the second meeting Paul and Asai told me they didn't have a reserve multiple times as the full budget hadn't come in yet and yes I did reassure them that it's fine if they do currently have a reserve and it's actually necessary as a large org as long as they just let the donor know how much they have that's it. So as you can see I felt like I was hearing mixed messages or possibly having miscommunications in our conversations which left me feeling like I wasn't getting the full story. Now let's move on to the point about the accountant that was offered. So Paul and Asai when the second chat offered a solution of an accountant's financial report which I agreed on and thought was a good idea. After talking further about this they said that the report they legally have to give to the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission does not show a full breakdown of salaries like how much each individual is receiving and what their roles are. It would only show a lump sum of salaries. AV's salaries were said to be 946,000 AUD for the year and Paul and Asai told the donor in their budget they would take a certain amount for each of their salaries but without a detailed breakdown of who earns what amount the donor would not have been able to verify this. This kind of report would also not show a breakdown of which groups received funds which was one of the things the donor was very specific about. I also explained to Paul and Asai that the donor asked me to cross check with staff and AV groups to verify that they were receiving the funds so a more simple report might not have been enough for the donor to be sure on the details. I also explained that the donor wanted this type of financial transparency starting from around January 2019. It's important to note that in 2019 Paul and Asai received 1.2 million USD from this same donor but five minutes into their first podcast Paul did say we weren't receiving a large amount of money till this year. We weren't receiving a large amount of money until this year, really. But 1.2 million USD is still a large amount of money especially when it's coming from one donor. But either way the point is the donor was requesting to know how this was spent. I left our second conversation agreeing that a third party accountants report would be a good idea. Paul and Asai's suggestion of an accountants report was relayed back to the donor and two of the donor's advisors. The donor's feedback on this was that he was concerned that this may not provide sufficient detail for him to feel comfortable that the funds were being spent appropriately as he was looking for specific expenditures that incurred at AV and then for that expenditure to be cross-checked on the other end with groups and staff. So he instructed me instead to ask for access to their charity accounts. The donor felt at the time that this would be the most forthright display of transparency and together with an experienced accountant and Matthew who's an organisation founder and trusted advisor to the donor we could analyse the accounts in real time based on the donor's requests. The donor felt this would make it easier to cross-check expenditure. Although I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea I didn't express to the donor that I thought this was unreasonable at the time as I felt that if it was me with a large charity with one main donor I personally would be willing to give him access to the charity accounts especially as this one donor was giving such large amounts to AV. A hundred thousand US dollars every three weeks is quite a lot of money. I would not have been conducting the financial analysis I would have only been helping to coordinate and cross-check as the donor felt I had a general understanding of activism-related costs and the others involved had more of an understanding of accounting and running large organisations. The donor was very firm on his request for access to AV's charity accounts and he asked me to relay this back to Paul and Asile. In the third conversation Asile didn't attend it was only Paul present. I made the donor's request clear to Paul that he wanted another set of IS and AV's charity accounts. I also said that we would not be looking at their personal accounts just their charity accounts. At no point did Paul tell me their personal accounts were linked in with their charity accounts. I first became aware that their personal accounts were linked in with their charity accounts in their first podcast which after consulting with an experienced auditor I was told is highly unusual for a large organisation. I know Paul and Asile responded to this by saying this is how bank accounts work in Australia everything is accessible through one login. But when I mentioned this point in my written statement I was just repeating what I was told by an experienced accountant. Now this is the part where some people have criticised myself and the donor and recalling my third chat with Paul I actually asked him for access to their charity accounts. I didn't overtly ask Paul for their login and password although I can see how this was taken. The access provided could have easily been viewer only or read only access which wouldn't give anyone involved the power to move funds or we could have done something like a share screen over a zoom call. I didn't raise these other options for access with Paul and our third call but I'm pretty sure the donor would have been happy with these suggestions. Now there was a point at the very end of the third conversation where I said to Paul if you're worried about confidentiality or me having a password or something like that then I can sign a confidentiality agreement. Now this is the part of our chat where I think Paul felt I was asking for their login details which looking back I can see how this wasn't the most sensible of solutions. But again I'm sure other options to view accounts could have been explored and negotiated with the donor. The donor just felt that real-time access would satisfy him most without any doubt but again I was just a messenger. After relaying the donor's request to Paul he said he needed to take this back to a sale to deliberate and come to a decision. I said to Paul that this is what the donor was asking for and that it wouldn't be at the exclusion of an accountant and in fact an accountant would be involved on our end. It was even suggested to the donor of having an Australian accountant involved as well. Paul made a point of saying at the end of our chat that he really wanted me to remain impartial and whatever decision they made was on them. I said to Paul that it's hard for me not to be emotionally involved as there's a lot at stake and I continually said in our chat that I have respect for both AV and the donor and I just wanted to get this resolved for everyone involved. The following day I asked whether Paul had spoken with a sale and they said to me they had to deliberate with their team. The day after that I asked again if they had reached a decision he responded by saying this. In hindsight I probably messaged Paul a little too soon but I was really anxious awaiting a response and just wanted to get this resolved. Paul saying I was choosing to instigate a threat against AV. I felt was unfair as it felt like he was already directing the blame solely at me. He knew I was in an awkward position and I was just trying my best to reach an amicable solution with them and the donor. After this blunt message from Paul I stopped my communications with them. Paul and the sale then sent an email response directly to the donor refusing access to their charity accounts instead offering an accountant's report and the donor decided to part ways with them and to cease funding. I felt that I was in a very hard situation here but in my heart I was just trying to do the right thing by AV the donor and the animals. I'm also open to the fact that during our conversations there may have been miscommunications on both sides. I also may have been a little out of my depth with this but I was only operating under the request of the donor and his final decision was out of my hands. There has been anger directed towards me and I can understand that Paul and the sale are upset that their funding from this donor has ceased but pushing the blame solely on to me again seems unfair. As like I said Paul stated before our first call that he felt they were already on their way to having their funding cut by this donor and I was only involved after communications between AV and the donor had broken down and trust had deteriorated. People are also asking if I now think AV's style of activism is ineffective or that I now don't support the activist on the ground. This is not true. I want to make it very clear that no matter my relationship between the founders of AV and myself I think the street outreach AV does is effective for the animals and I do support the activist on the ground. I didn't set out to have AV's funding cut like the narrative that is being spread. In fact it was the opposite. Maybe things could have been handled better by everyone involved but I shouldn't be held responsible for the donor's final decision because I was just a messenger in all of this. I'd like to finish this video with a possible solution recently brought forward by the donor. As the donor was not originally satisfied with Paul and the sale's offer of an accountants report he is now willing to consider resuming their funding on the basis they agreed to a deeper more detailed financial analysis that could be conducted under the donor's directions. This would be with specific objectives that would answer the donor's concerns about how his 1.9 million US dollars since January 2019 was used. This time there'll be no request for access to bank accounts and this would be conducted by a professional auditor who would act under the directions of the donor himself. If this is something Paul and the sale would be willing to do in good faith then they can reach out to the donor's advisor Matthew to get this underway. I'll be staying out of these negotiations from now on. Thank you to everyone for considering my side. Again I'm sorry for this public video. I do want to focus my time on the animals but I feel some things needed to be further explained. Thanks for watching.