Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Fancy defending a position that the government has on integrity and accountability with a bill that they didn't allow any accountability for in this place, the ensuring integrity bill. Do they even listen to themselves speak? It is absolutely astounding that the government would use that as a defence of this sports rorts scandal. This stinks. The sports rorts scandal stinks and the fish rots from the head. Over there, with their born-to-rule attitude, they are very happy turning taxpayer funds into the Liberal Party coffers.

They've done this before. In an area that is underfunded in this country, the arts, years and years ago George Brandis took money out of the Australia Council and put it into the Catalyst fund. The thing that everyone knew was that only George Brandis could decide where that funding went. Instead of having an independent oversight agency that actually helped fund cultural policy in this country, George Brandis wanted his own slush fund for the arts in this country. It was a disgrace. It has decimated the industry and cost jobs. We as Australians are lesser for it.

If you want to know about the character of those opposite, especially the man who sits in the chair up the front, you only have to look at the character they displayed during the bushfires over summer. When our country needed leadership, what they got was a Liberal Party ad. When our country needed leadership, the Prime Minister said, 'Australians, you should donate to the Liberal Party for our bushfires.' And instead of having accountability and oversight for $100 million—$100 million of taxpayer funds—they turned the bushfires into a Liberal Party ad and they've turned taxpayer dollars into a Labor Party slush fund. That's what this government does.

Let's go into the resignation of Bridget McKenzie. Senator McKenzie resigned over the $100 million sports rorts scandal. But she didn't resign because of the reasons why she should have resigned. She resigned because apparently she forgot to declare that she was a member of a gun club. But the reason why she should have resigned is all the reasons that are being drip fed out right now—that this process was corrupt, that this process stinks and that the $100 million of taxpayer funds used by those opposite where for Liberal Party purposes. That's why Senator McKenzie should have resigned, and that's why those opposite I'm sure are taking a good, hard long look at the Prime Minister right now, who couldn't reveal any details during question time because he knows that he is in strife. That man is under pressure, and we all know it in this place.

In McNamara we have some outstanding local sporting clubs and at Caulfield Park, under the governance of the Glen Eira City Council, we are absolutely chockers. There is not an inch of that park that doesn't get used. We have over 20 soccer teams on a waiting list to get into that park. We have so many clubs who are sharing that facility. It is a community facility, and of course the Glen Eira council, along with all of the sporting clubs, put in an application, and this story has been told. But let's have a guess of the rating that the Glen Eira council received.

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