Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] This government's continued misuse of taxpayers' money is nothing short of astonishing. Like the repetitive moments in the movie Groundhog Day, it's another day and another rorting scandal. There were the sports rorts, with the biased distribution of funds and a conflict of interest prompting the resignation of a minister; airport rorts, where the government paid $30 million for a piece of land that was only worth $3 million; car parks, where the Auditor-General reported a $389 million car park construction fund had been administered ineffectively. I quote:

… the Minister had distributed the grants with 'inadequate assessment' for eligibility ...

Also, the Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, was accused of reducing funding to the highest ranked community safety projects and redirecting the funding to projects of his choice, including those not recommended by his department.

The difference between Labor and the Liberals is clear: Labor's policy to establish, for the first time in Australia, a national anticorruption commission will ensure a much needed change to standards of integrity and accountability in the federal government. The powerful and independent national anticorruption commission that Labor will establish stands in stark contrast to the universally condemned model for an integrity commission put forward by the Morrison government. Indeed, Mr Morrison's proposed integrity commission has been described by legal experts as a body designed not to stamp out corruption but to help cover it up. A remedy to the basic failures of public administration by this government is a long time overdue.

Within my electorate of Gilmore, there was the devastation from the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20. The government had previously established the significant $4 billion Emergency Response Fund, providing investment for natural disaster relief and mitigation. Four billion dollars is a huge amount. I have a couple of other important numbers. Firstly: 28. It is exactly 28 months since the $4 billion Emergency Response Fund was announced in April 2019—28 months! The other number is zero. Care to hazard a guess at the total amount that has been drawn down from the fund to improve resilience and to help repair the damage that was created during those devastating bushfires? Correct: zero. It is tragic that money allocated for disaster mitigation is not being used. The most recent Senate estimates found that Emergency Response Fund projects were yet to see funding hit the ground. This fund is earning more in interest than it is using to protect and assist Australians with natural disasters.

All the while, west of Moruya, on the New South Wales South Coast, atop Mount Wandera, sits the main telecommunications infrastructure for the whole of the Eurobodalla. It transmits police, ambulance and fire radio communications, as well as ABC and commercial radio and television, and mobile phone services—critical infrastructure. Extensive damage to the facility in the Black Summer bushfires resulted in the loss of emergency services radio networks and other telecommunications, significantly contributing to the community's fear during the event and, worse still, placing our first responders at higher risk. The asset remains vulnerable. Burnt poles leading to the site were replaced with timber and a tower is surrounded by prolific regrowth as well as dead, dying and fallen trees.

I support Eurobodalla council's efforts there, along with the Eurobodalla Local Emergency Management Committee and the far South Coast bushfire management committee, when calling for urgent funding to replace the timber power poles with more resilient composite poles. Any reasonable Australian would understand that being proactive through regional and remote areas, investing in resilient telecommunications infrastructure, is fundamentally important. Such failures of public administration by this government are just breathtaking— (Time expired)

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