Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. Why did the minister tell David Koch of the Sunrise program that he did not realise how many community groups were affected by Labor’s budget decision to abolish Regional Partnerships? Given the budget announcement of a week earlier, why did the minister also tell Mr Koch that it had only just come to his attention that some really good community projects had been scrapped and they were now re-examining them? Minister, what have you been doing in the last six months?

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

Order! The last part of the question did nothing to add anything to the tenor of question time.

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

I have been reading the National Audit Office report, a report which has taken six months because it is 1,200 pages of a litany of the rorts that occurred under the Regional Partnerships program under the maladministration of those opposite. I did appear on the Sunrise program three weeks ago. No questions were asked at the time, but they are a bit slow in the National Party. On that program they raised the issue of a playground. It was a playground in Bundaberg in the electorate of the member for Hinkler. I am happy to talk about that playground and the circumstances because the discussion that I had with David Koch was about that playground. I rang the proponent of this particular project. This is a proponent who has raised substantial amounts of money through Rotary, through the local community, and who was given approval by the former government under Regional Partnerships.

One of the deals that comes with the contract once it has been fulfilled for Regional Partnerships is that there has to be signage that the Australian government was providing funds for a particular project. For this project, which had not been contracted, for which there was no finalisation of arrangements, there was a sign on the fence of the playground saying ‘Funded by the Australian government’. One of the things that the Rudd government is committed to is making sure that the victims of the incompetence and maladministration of the Regional Partnerships program do not miss out. That is why we have a process whereby those approved but not contracted programs will have until 31 July to complete their contract but with proper financial scrutiny, including from the department of the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. That needs to occur.

Also in Bundaberg under Regional Partnerships there was an application from Bundaberg City Council for the turtle interpretive centre. It was in the same town under the same program. The council wrote to the federal government on 15 March requesting—because the Queensland government had given $770,000—that the grant from the federal government be made up to $576,400. On 15 March the council said it wanted $576,000. But what happened with taxpayers’ funds? On 30 April the Regional Partnerships ministerial committee approved $1,114,300. You apply for $576,000 but you get $1.1 million approved. The minister sent a letter to the council informing the council of the grant. The member for Hinkler went and announced $1.1 million, even though the council only wanted $576,000. The then government found out about this and, on 4 May 2007, an email from the minister’s office, from the adviser, to the department said, ‘I have just got off the phone from a very angry Mr Neville who has announced twice the amount that the council wanted for this project.’ There was a bit of a problem. This was taxpayers’ funds they were concerned about. The ministerial adviser then went on—and this is the real area of concern; this is the punchline for those who know it is coming and the member for Hinkler knows it is coming—and said, ‘At this point there should be no public discussion of this with the council or ACC,’ the area consultative committee. So you apply for $576,000, you announce $1.1 million, but you do not tell anyone. It is only taxpayers’ funds after all!

That is the problem with this project. The problem is that the National Party confused their funds with taxpayers’ funds. They thought that it was their money to hand out willy-nilly regardless of processes. On 17 April 2008, the Mayor of Bundaberg, Lorraine Pyefinch, in the Bundaberg NewsMail said:

I can’t see how any organisation in this current climate could even attempt to set up a business which relies solely on having live loggerhead turtle hatchlings as part of the attraction because as a business model it just didn’t stack up.

I thank the honourable member for his question. I look forward to my first question from the shadow minister for regional development, because he has not asked one in this House. It is not surprising, because their performance was completely embarrassing and a complete maladministration, as these 1,200 pages indicate.