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

As the member who just interrupted my answer then knows, the Commonwealth does not directly procure infrastructure projects. We do those through agreements with every state and territory. But where the Commonwealth has direct funding and a contracting role—such as with the Western Sydney airport—I have asked, quite some time ago now, my department to advise me in relation to all of those projects. The Minister for Finance and I wrote to chairs of the ARTC, the Western Sydney Airport Corporation and National Intermodal seeking assurances that they comply with all relevant laws, demonstrating efficient, effective, economical and ethical expenditure of taxpayer money, and that allegations or instances of improper or criminal conduct be reported immediately. We did that sometime ago. Where the Commonwealth partners with states and territories, we've got a new federated funding agreement, and in that agreement we embedded new requirements for our funding agreement, to prevent these issues from occurring, including emphasising the importance of our— (Time expired)

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