Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

What the audit found was that it is more likely that your project would be funded if you had a low score than if you had a high score. That is the legacy of the previous government when it comes to these programs. Not only did the Audit Office find that there was a lack of transparency; what they increasingly did was that they ignored the Commonwealth grants guidelines and then changed the way in which they operated. By the fifth round of this program, what we saw was that the previous government actually requested that the department didn't give them any recommendations so that they didn't have to report when they counteracted the department of infrastructure. That's what we saw. There isn't a National Party member who wouldn't like to get their hands on a dollar for their seat at the expense of— (Time expired).

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