Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. Will the minister update the House on the government’s commitments to regional Australia in light of the Australian National Audit Office report on Regional Partnerships released last year?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corio for his question. Indeed, the Australian National Audit Office report which came out last year, three volumes of it, has page after page indicating the failure of the National Party, in particular, to conduct its regional programs in an appropriate manner. What this documents, according to the Audit Office, is:

The manner in which the program has been administered over the three-year period to 30 June 2006 examined by ANAO had fallen short of an acceptable standard of public administration.

That is an underestimation, because what this report showed was that in 2004, in a 51-minute spending spree just before they went into caretaker mode, the former parliamentary secretary, the former member for Dawson, approved 16 projects worth $3.3 million—16 projects in 51 minutes. But you would think maybe that the government of the time might have learnt something from that process. Upon coming to this job, I have been asking questions of my department about these processes, and what happened in the week before the 2007 election was called? They approved 32 Regional Partnerships projects—32 worth $5½ million. Not surprisingly, consistent with the way that they confused taxpayers’ funds with National Party funds, 28 of these projects were in National and Liberal Party seats.

In November 2007, the member for Lyons, the then minister, admitted that there was room for improvement, but he had already approved some $650,000 for projects in his own electorate that year. One-third of taxpayer funds went to projects in only 10 coalition electorates. The Audit Office found that they approved projects where no funding application was received. They fast-tracked projects, they fast-tracked assessments, when it suited them. No wonder that I am calling the Audit Office the ‘Nationals Audit Office’, because for report after report what we find is an outrageous abuse of taxpayers’ funds. And what’s more, they wasted taxpayers’ funds on red tape. It cost 20c in every dollar just on administering this program.

We know that the community youth outreach centre in Wide Bay was funded in 2005 within one day of an application being lodged. In 2004 a health complex in Maranoa was funded within one day of an application being lodged. Then there is the Keith Seeds grant of $571,000. This was a grant paid to a commercial company for installing equipment. Even though the department recommended against funding this project not once but twice, the minister intervened to overturn that, and it was only later on that we found out that the local MP, the member for Barker, who wrote a letter of support for the application, was actually a shareholder in the company that got the grant.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Leader of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: the question referred to the ANAO report, not this long diatribe.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister is relevant.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is all in the ‘National’s Audit Office’ report. There was $1.05 million—this is a beauty—paid to the Gunnedah ethanol plant. As regional development minister, I might want to go and have a look at this plant, but it is pretty hard because, although $1.05 million of the $1.2 million grant which was agreed in August 2004 has been paid, nothing has happened. There is no plant there. Over $1 million of taxpayers’ funds have been paid—and an application supported by the chief of staff to the then Leader of the National Party, even though he was not the relevant minister at the time. It goes on. There is example after example. In the interests of brevity we might roll them out two or three at a time, because this is very interesting reading and I recommend it to every member on both sides of the parliament. A Rudd Labor government is committed to proper funding for regional development programs—proper funding on the basis of proper consideration, not on the basis of short-term partisan political fixes by the National Party.