Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Today Nine News has reported that the almost half a billion dollars of taxpayers' money that the Prime Minister offered to a small private foundation in a closed-door meeting was rushed out of the department in just 24 hours. Whether it's new taxpayer funded coal-fired power stations or just private foundations run by his friends, why is this Prime Minister so reckless with taxpayers' money?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member demeans himself and his party with his smears, but I'll ask the minister for the environment to deal with the time line and the process relating to that grant.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know the Labor Party is only raising this issue because they've abandoned the voters in the seat of Herbert. They've abandoned the voters in the seat of Leichhardt. They've abandoned the voters in the seat of Flynn. They've abandoned the voters in the seat of Capricornia. And they've abandoned the voters in the seat of Dawson. Sixty-four thousand people are employed with the reef. It provides more than $6 billion to the Australian economy, and it has been the Turnbull government that has raised and supported extra money for the reef.

We know that my department has made it clear in a report to the Senate that the partnership that is established through a grant agreement is in accordance with the relevant requirements of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 and the Commonwealth Grant Rules and Guidelines. The process to establish the grant included the development of grant guidelines by the department to specify the intended outcome and conditions of the grant and a due diligence review by the department of the foundation's proposal responding to the guidelines.

The department made it very clear.

The department assessed that the foundation’s proposal represents value for money and is an appropriate use of Commonwealth resources.

So, at the end of the day, the Leader of the Opposition knows the only reason he is raising this is because, under the Labor Party, the environment department's funding for reef projects was around 50 per cent lower than what it is under the coalition and that under the Labor Party, their last year in office, base funding for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was nearly half of what it is today. The Labor Party knows that when they were in government they put the reef on the path to the endangered list. And the Labor Party knows that when they were in government they had no long-term plan and no funding for the reef. Only the coalition will stand up for regional jobs in Queensland and will support the reef with a record investment of funding.