Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I pay tribute to the millions of passionate and hardworking volunteers of local sporting organisations who have been dudded by the Morrison government sports rorts. Countless projects that were deemed eligible and rated highly for funding by the independent Sport Australia were ignored by the former sports minister and replaced with projects that were ineligible, with low ratings. Why? Because they were in Liberal-held marginal electorates—rorts and pork barrelling at its best! The most outrageous being in the Prime Minister's own electorate where the Sans Souci soccer club received $50,000 for a project that had already been completed and had already been officially opened. My question to those opposite is: who was the genius that forgot that you opened a set of change sheds?

After claiming that it was all the sports minister's fault, we now know that the Prime Minister's office were up to their necks in it. There were 136 emails between the Prime Minister's office and Senator McKenzie's, including on the day the election was called. The ANAO confirmed that the Prime Minister's office requested changes to projects that had received funding. This comes on top of North Sydney pool receiving $10 million of funding, despite this funding being earmarked for the regions. The Liberals say: 'That's okay. People from the bush can swim in it.' I'm sure the students of Broken Hill Public School are looking forward to next year's swimming carnival at North Sydney! This Prime Minister had misled the parliament and the Australian people. You should apologise, Prime Minister, to those people you dudded. (Time expired)

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