Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'The minister’s office used the spreadsheets provided to it by Sport Australia to undertake a parallel assessment process as a basis for the minister deciding which projects should be funded, with additional analysis on "marginal" electorates held by the coalition as well as those electorates not held by the coalition that were to be "targeted" in the 2019 election.' These aren't my words or Labor's words; these are the words of the Australian National Audit Office. The Prime Minister and his team broke the rules. They'll be going into the hall of fame 100 years after the Chicago White Sox, who conspired with gamblers to fix games. This Prime Minister would probably defend Lance Armstrong. We know that his beloved Cronulla Sharks couldn't count either. They couldn't follow the salary caps.

But what this government did was worse. They were trying to fix an election, cheating community organisations that had done the right thing, that had written their applications in good faith. They had spent their time doing it. These are volunteer organisations, like the Noranda Netball Association, that have been cheated out of half a million dollars by this government. The Chung Wah Association, which has been in the electorate Perth for 110 years, was denied $50,000 because of political interference. The Mount Lawley Bowling Club still can't get an answer as to why their grant application wasn't approved. Twenty per cent of the applications in the top 50 that were unreasonably denied by this government were from Western Australia.