Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Ballarat proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's continued misuse of taxpayers' money and basic failures of public administration.

I call upon all those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

Around Australia right now and around our world, there is a lot going on. We have the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. We're perhaps looking, here in Australia, at a double-dip recession. We have a pandemic raging. We have half the country in lockdown. And, behind it all, we have climate change continuing at pace. The role of government has perhaps never been more important. But, instead of having a government capable of doing its job, we have a government that is simply not up to the job.

It's perhaps fitting today that the Prime Minister revealed that he's getting his COVID lessons from the children's film The Croods. For those who don't have the joy of small children, The Croods is the story of a group of cave-dwellers who get swept from one chaotic disaster to another—often of their own making—and never quite come to grips with what's going on. It's hard to think of a better metaphor for this government, because, when you look over the course of this government and this prime ministership, all you see is one disaster after another, one crisis after another—often of their own making—and somehow them being surprised that: 'Oh, we're in government and we're responsible for trying to do something about it.'

First came the bushfires. As communities across Australia burnt, the Prime Minister relaxed on a Hawaiian beach. When fire chiefs warned of unprecedented conditions, he told them not to worry. When Australians were rescued off the beach at Mallacoota, he was knocking down pina coladas. When Australians wanted leadership, he told us he didn't hold a hose. While firefighters desperately called for help, he claimed that they wanted to be there. The only thing he offered them was a forced handshake.

Then, when the pandemic began, he went to the Rugby League. He told us it wasn't a race. He told us quarantine was someone else's problem. He told us not to lock down.

When Australian women cried out for respect and safety, the Prime Minister told us we were lucky we weren't being shot. He could only relate to the alleged rape of a young woman when he was told to view it through the context of his own family. Then, instead of supporting the survivor, his office briefed against her loved ones.

He failed to heed the warnings of veterans to evacuate our allies from Afghanistan in time. Instead, he abandoned those who'd served beside our troops.

Under this Prime Minister, we've had robodebt; we've had the dud NBN; we've had jobs for mates, rising childcare costs, stagnant wages, cuts to Medicare and plummeting numbers of trainees and apprentices. We've had whatever the minister for energy's latest scandal is—something to do with a charter flight and Liberal donors in the Beetaloo; it's hard to keep up with his mishaps. Because of the failed vaccine rollout and failures in quarantine, we've got kids stuck at home, missing out on the education they deserve, and small businesses going to the wall. We're all tired of it; we're despairing of when we're going to get out of it, because this Prime Minister failed to do his job. There's a lot wrong with this Prime Minister, but there's always a pretty consistent theme. It's always someone else's problem, always someone else's fault. It's always about him. He's slow to act, but he's really quick to blame.

Having failed so badly at rolling out the vaccine in time and fixing the problems with national quarantine, there is one thing where he's at the head of the pack, where he's winning the race, and that is rorts. We've had sports rorts, where $100 million was used to target marginal seats. The minister went to the back bench for a little time. But of course she's back, because, according to the Prime Minister, she did absolutely nothing wrong.

We've had the Safer Communities Fund rorts. There were communities which were worried about crime rates and looked to local councils, who looked for cameras and lighting in their communities to try to prevent crime in their areas. We had 91 per cent of the $30 million third round ending up in government-held, Independent or marginal seats. That's what happened. Apparently, community safety is only needed in marginal seats, not anywhere else!

We've had, of course, regional rorts, where hundreds of projects were funded by a panel of ministers, despite not having been recommended by the Public Service, and the coalition-held target seats received 94 per cent of 94 per cent of the funds. We've of course had the Leppington Triangle. The minister here at the desk was responsible for paying $30 million for a piece of land that was valued by the department of infrastructure at only $3 million—something that the minister at the desk thinks was perfectly sensible. And, of course, we had car park rorts, where $660 million was allocated, based on a top 20 marginal electorate spreadsheet shared with the Prime Minister's office. That's what this government has been doing with its time. We had the Prime Minister's office hand-picking projects for car park rorts. He cannot deny his own personal involvement in that, because the Audit Office pointed to him directly and to his role and his responsibility in it.

The Prime Minister has never seen a taxpayer fund that he hasn't wanted to use for his own political purposes. His one guiding interest in every single thing that he does, in everything that he does, whether it's the use of taxpayer money or whether it's his failures in the vaccine rollout and quarantine, is his own political interest, not the national interest. He cares nothing for protecting taxpayers' money or good public governance. It is all about his political interest.

What we saw happen with car park rorts was a massive failure of public administration. We have seen what the government learnt from sports rorts. It was not that you don't have a process. They called for community members across the country to put in applications and they had a process where they'd be assessed by the department—and then, of course, they were obviously ignored. What this government seems to have learnt from sports rorts and its other rorts is to just not have a process at all, to basically just say: let's pick 20 seats that are all marginal that we want to win in this campaign; let's allocate the funding according to that, between the Prime Minister's office and the minister's office.

To be fair to the minister at the desk, he wasn't the minister at the time. He's trying to clean up this mess and, unfortunately, as a result, has had to cancel some of these projects because he knows that this has been an absolute disaster. The reality is that they've have been unable to deliver the car parks because they were actually in the wrong spot. They were where there were no actual train stations, or where train stations were going to be cancelled. They are where there was no land available for them to be put in the first place. They are unable to deliver them because of this administration. This is not just a small amount of money we are talking about. It's not just a one-off. It is $660 million out of a $4.7 billion Urban Congestion Fund.

We know that what the government have learnt by this rorting is that they will do it again. They've got over $2 billion in unspent Urban Congestion Fund money that is sitting there. Have they learnt their lesson? Have they said: 'We had better actually call for projects out of this Urban Congestion Fund'? Have they gone out to local councils and said: 'Here is a process. You can apply for this funding to deal with urban congestion'? No. They haven't done any of that. We know that they are going to do exactly the same thing in the lead-up to the next election. They are going to pick projects. They're already doing it now. They're talking to marginal seats, they're talking to candidates, they're talking to their patron senators in their duty electorates, saying, 'Where do we want to spend this money in order to further rort taxpayer funds for election purposes?'

This government cares nothing about protecting taxpayers' money or good public governance. It is all about them. Their policies, their statements and their beliefs change by the day, depending on what will help them win the news package or get a good headline. Even as they are wracking up trillions of dollars in debt they're doubling down. We know, as a result of the good work of our senators, that they have multiple slush funds for the run-up to the next political campaign. This is no way to run a country. You can't run a country like that in good times, let alone when we are in the trouble we are in today.

Australians deserve much better than a government that sees taxpayer funds as Liberal Party funds. They deserve much better than a government that does not believe we should have an Independent Commission Against Corruption. They deserve much better than a government that sees the sole purpose of being in government as staying in power, not helping people across this community. Australians deserve a government much better than this. They deserve an Albanese government.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Politics is full of rich ironies, but there is no richer irony than the member for Ballarat pontificating on the subject of public administration. She's right to ask what the Auditor-General has said about particular matters, and let me quote one thing the Auditor-General had to say:

Under the third and fourth rounds, which are the subject of this performance audit report, more than $226 million in grant funding was awarded to 121 capital infrastructure projects by the then Minister for Regional Services …

…   …   …

…   …   …

…   …   …

That is the Auditor-General's assessment of the conduct of the member for Ballarat. Is there a more ludicrous spectacle than somebody who has been so roundly, appropriately and justifiably criticised by the Auditor-General coming in here and pontificating about standards in government?

Of course, it goes well beyond the member for Ballarat. Here's another report from the Auditor-General that I'd like to direct the attention of the House to. It spoke about a particular regional local community infrastructure program. It said that, in one instance, the relevant minister 'made an explicit decision to approve an application that was known to be otherwise ineligible under the Guidelines'. It went on to say that the relevant minister 'explicitly decided to waive the project eligibility criteria for an application they wished to fund'. In another example of what seems to be a track record or a consistent pattern of behaviour from the other side of the House, the report states that 'the awarding of funding to projects also disproportionately favoured ALP held seats'.

Who was this Auditor-General's report about? It was about the then minister for infrastructure, the member for Grayndler, the Leader of the Opposition. And the member for Ballarat has just come in here and advanced the ludicrous proposition that somehow the Labor Party are going to be the bringers of some new high standard of public administration—a claim which is frankly delusional and utterly at odds with the clear documentary evidence from a series of Auditor-General's reports.

When we talk about delusional, we can go to many of the things that the shadow minister ran through in her speech that we've just heard. But there's a charge that's more serious than 'delusional'. It is the frankly disgusting characterisation by the member for Ballarat, and by the opposition, of the vaccine rollout. Our nation faces the biggest public health challenge in a hundred years, and the opposition is desperately talking it down. They are willing the vaccine rollout to fail. They need to have a good look at themselves, because it is hard to find a more depressing instance of political behaviour when we and all fair-minded Australians—all Australians of goodwill, including, I might say, Labor governments around the country—are working in a determined fashion to get Australia through this challenge and to build on the growing success of the vaccine rollout with 17.4 million doses now having gone into arms around Australia. All Australians of goodwill want this to succeed, they're willing it on, but there's one group of Australians who want to see it fail, and we've heard that again today. That's a clear inference that can be drawn from the very disappointing comments of the member for Ballarat.

We hear a clear and consistent pattern of misstatement of fact from the shadow minister when she refers to particular matters of public administration under this government. Once again, we heard a tired, factually incorrect claim about the Leppington Triangle. It seems that the opposition think you can buy 13.62 hectares of land in Western Sydney, on the outer fringes of that growing metropolitan area, just near the Western Sydney airport, for $3 million. It seems that's what they believe. Well I say to them: good luck with that! Go out to Western Sydney and offer to buy 13.62 hectares for $3 million. That is the substance of their indignant claim—that there was some problem that the land was bought for $30 million rather than $3 million.

Don't take my opinion on this matter, Mr Deputy Speaker. I refer you to an independent audit provided by the respected consultancy Sententia, commissioned by department of infrastructure, which had this to say:

The determination of the amount to pay for a property is a judgement. Officers exercised that judgement in the case of the Leppington Triangle, and paid a price per square metre that is not inconsistent with numerous recent transactions in the region. This land will be a part of a multibillion dollar airport precinct with significant long-term benefit to the Australian people and the Australian economy.

Sententia also had this to say:

There is no question that there were process weaknesses in how the acquisition was completed … However, addressing those process weaknesses would not have allowed the Commonwealth to acquire the land for $3 million.

That is the view from an independent audit of this set of circumstances, which the shadow minister continues to wilfully misrepresent.

Let's turn to the question of commuter car parks. The shadow minister, as well as the member for Scullin, in his brief escape from the obscurity within which he has previously dwelled for many years, has been seeking to mount the argument that there is somehow a distinction to be drawn between the desirability of Commonwealth funding for commuter car parks at Mango Hill, at Gosford, at Woy Woy, at Panania, at Hurstville, at Mandurah, at Riverwood, at Frankston, at Campbelltown and at St Marys. The proposition that we have, as best as can be discerned from the confusing garble from the member for Scullin, appears to be that when funding is committed to those commuter car parks by the Labor Party, as it unquestionably was in the 2019 election, that's a good thing, but when it's done by the coalition it automatically becomes, through some mysterious alchemy, a bad thing. That is the argument. That is what the member for Scullin is pleased to describe as an argument.

He went on to say this: 'Oh, we all understand that congestion is a major problem in Australia. We all understand the pressures on commuters and the importance of enabling people to have more efficient trips to work, and commuter car parks provide a vital role.' So they do. That indeed goes to the underlying policy rationale which, as the member for Scullin found very difficult to deny, is the rationale for the policy advanced by Labor and the policy advanced by the coalition. He seeks desperately to distinguish. He says, 'But they need to be determined on need and evidence, not the whim of political parties.' That apparently is the basis on which a distinction is to be drawn between the conduct of the Labor Party and the conduct of the coalition. How is he to explain, against that high-minded test he has set, the fact that the member for Maribyrnong, the then Leader of the Opposition, announced the park-and-ride fund—Labor's version, worth $300 million—on one day and then the very next day turned up in Gosford saying, 'We should have a commuter car park here'? Where is the need and evidence? Where is the deep scientific basis that is apparently the distinction between two sides of parliament? There is none. The fact is that Labor's claims that they offer some high-minded new spirit of public administration are rightly laughed at by anybody who has even the barest understanding of what they did in their chaotic years in government. (Time expired)

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister spoke of desperation, and that was 10 minutes of pure undiluted desperation. He set a test at the end, but it's a test that he and the government of which he is a part failed. We on this side of the House are resolute in our commitment to putting in place a national anticorruption commission. If he had any bona fides, if his Prime Minister had any, he would join us and subject himself to that standard instead of walking away in a very generous and appropriate homage to the Prime Minister, who likes to walk away from any questioning.

Of course you'd be aware that three years ago today the member for Cook, the Prime Minister, having said just before that he had no leadership ambitions, became this country's leader. To be fair to him—and Malcolm Turnbull may rankle a little bit at this—he has been true to his word. He has demonstrated no leadership ambitions, none whatsoever, and this MPI really draws that out. We see a government that can't tell the difference between its political interest and Australia's national interest, nor, fundamentally, despite what Mr Perfectly Sensible seems to suggest, between LNP slush funds and public money that should be accountable to the public through this parliament.

This has been a hallmark of the government, because, actually, they aren't terribly interested in governing. We see that day in, day out, and this really reflects the leader of the government, because he hasn't got interest in government. He shows us that day in, day out at this dispatch box and in all his public utterances, where his first inclination is to avoid, his second is to blame and his third is to pass the buck, time and time again. When it comes to the work of government, there's no interest in public administration. In fact, as the minister demonstrated earlier, there's not even a pretence of interest. I will say this to the minister: he obviously fancies himself as a university debater, and he should go back to that if he enjoys it so much, because he is bringing very little to this chamber and less to his role. But what the Prime Minister is bringing to his role is politicising everything in the cheapest possible way. He will govern by spreadsheet, not by deliberative process. He's up to his neck in the car park rorts scandal. He was up to his neck in the sports rorts scandal, because this is how he sees government: it's all about naked political interest, not about the national interest. And Australians are on to him.

The member for Ballarat went through a litany of scandal which only scratched the surface of the dismal record of this government, a dismal record betraying the trust and confidence of the Australian people. How telling it was that the minister before, the university debater, could simply, head down, read out the Auditor-General reports from the past and mischaracterise positions in the future. What a nonsense that was to suggest that being in favour of commuter car parks or, indeed, infrastructure more broadly is the same as being up for the sorts of rorts that have been so brutally exposed by the Auditor-General, that have been so brutally condemned by the Auditor-General's report and for which this government must be made accountable. We are talking about $660 million of public money invested not on the basis of evidence and need. Interestingly, the minister walked away from his previous suggestions that that was the basis. If you look at any of the reports he referred to, his arguments fall away, because the evidence is simply not there.

I have some sympathy for the minister, because none of this was his doing. We know this was the business of the now minister for education, the member for Aston, and, indeed, the Prime Minister, who was also involved with the member of Aston with these secret spreadsheets, the spreadsheets that are apparently cabinet documents even though the cabinet minister then responsible claims he never saw them. What a joke that is. It's another example of how contemptuous this government is for the very concept of public administration, the very concept of good governance. Once again we see they're unable to come to the dispatch box and account for their actions because they are true to the Prime Minister—the first reaction, to blame; the second, to deflect; the third, to simply deny that there's a problem here at all. But there is a problem here. It's a problem that will only be solved by changing the government and putting in place a national anticorruption commission. (Time expired)

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party, Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's not often I get the opportunity to say thank you to the member for Ballarat for opening up a debate like this and, in particular, mentioning something within my portfolio, which is the Beetaloo basin. We know those opposite will go to any lengths to look for mud. They'll turn over every rock, open every cupboard, go to every dark space. I can say to those opposite: you are barking up the wrong tree. You are barking mad if you think there is an issue in terms of the Beetaloo basin and the support that we are providing. So I say to the member of Ballarat, and I say it here and say it publicly: if you have an allegation to make, step up. There's a press gallery just over there looking for a story. Step up to them, make the allegation, and say what it is you are trying to intimate.

Here are some facts: the Beetaloo Strategic Basin Plan, in terms of the $50 million grant program, was announced by me. I am the responsible minister. I am the decision-maker in terms of those grants and who they go to. That announcement was made on 17 December 2020—the availability of the grant program and that it would be made available for those individuals and companies who are out there, the ones who have access to the exploration permits around the Beetaloo, to bring forward that investment. Why is that important? Because we think that the Beetaloo sub-basin could increase economic activity by between $18 billion and $36 billion. That is a significant amount of money, and in this matter of public importance discussion those opposite are suggesting that this is not a worthwhile spend. It can drive up to 6,000 jobs in the Northern Territory by 2040. Why have we put $50 million on the table for exploration grants? It is a very practical, commonsense reason. We want to bring forward that exploration because it brings forward the development of the basin. It brings forward the economic activity and it brings those jobs into the Territory, where they're desperately needed.

I will come back to what those opposite are intimating when they make these claims and statements, and it's pretty straightforward. There is a proponent to which we have offered grant support. That decision was made by me, as the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia, based on the advice and recommendations of an independent panel, who made an assessment against the guidelines for the Beetaloo grants program, which I accepted. That is how it works. That is how these decisions are made. These are the right decisions, because it is good for the Northern Territory if we can bring forward those jobs, that economic development. We think the Beetaloo gas could be some 200,000 petajoules. This is a significant basin. It is a significant investment and a significant opportunity for our country. Those opposite want to disparage what we're doing for the people of the Northern Territory and the people of Australia. It's just wrong.

What else is it they're suggesting they might not support? Is it the Exploring for the Future program, which has already identified more than a trillion dollars worth of resources in Australia that into the future we can develop to build our wealth and provide more opportunities? Is it the $100 million extension of the junior minerals exploration incentive, which we know, particularly in Western Australia, has resulted in an absolute increase, a boom, in exploration? Down the track, that will mean more resource projects, more mines, more employment and more opportunities for Australians; not only for Australians who are already out there but for apprentices and trainees to be engaged, to learn those skills, to pick up a trade in the resources sector.

I congratulate the sector on what they've done. Some $310 billion in exports is the estimate for the last financial year. They broke all records. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, in the midst of what is effectively a worldwide meltdown around the economies of other nations, this country has broken all records for its exports. The sector have managed the pandemic in an incredibly good way. Up until recently, there hadn't been a single outbreak, not one case. We still have people who are on FIFO, who must cross borders because they have particular skills that can't be found. The industry has managed to support those cases and to keep those businesses operational.

And yet, what we have in those opposite is the member for Ballarat, who wants to come in and intimate something about a program for which I'm responsible and try to lay it at the feet of the minister for energy. The minister for energy is not the decision-maker; I am. And I stand by those decisions. They are the right decisions for this country, because they will bring forward investment, they will bring forward jobs and they will bring forward opportunities. As we come out of the COVID pandemic, and as we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is jobs like these and resource projects like these that will make a real difference to our country into the future. I continue to stand by the sector and what we are doing, and I will always do that.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The biggest fraud in Australian politics is the Prime Minister, and the biggest lie is the Liberal Party claiming to be good at managing money!

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Whitlam will resume his seat.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party, Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Reflecting on the member.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member to withdraw the reference to fraud.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw the reference to fraud. I'm simply making the point that the Prime Minister has tripled the debt. They have fiddled the books; they have driven wages backwards; they have driven jobseekers and small businesses to despair; they have written checks to the value of $20 billion to boost the bonuses and dividends of their mates. It's all on the record. They don't deny it. Their greatest hope is that people are going to forget. We had the minister just now describe it as some kind of 'mysterious alchemy'. The people of Australia have got another word for it: rorting. It's using taxpayers' money as if it were their own money. And taxpayers will not forget. They remember the land deal that gave hope to every dodgy second-hand car dealer in the country. If you can get $30 million for a $3 million package of land then your dad's bashed up Datsun down the back of the garage has got to be worth a royal fortune.

The sports rorts of $100 million were a real special. They set up a program to build women's change rooms. Lord knows it's needed, but, for God's sake, don't give it to any of those sporting clubs with women's sporting teams! They ploughed it into clubs that didn't have women's sporting teams. The big daddy of them all was 'pork 'n' ride'. It's big by any standard—$4 billion dollars—supposedly for urban infrastructure, but its real purpose is not to save the jobs of Australians doing it tough but to save the Prime Minister's job. We already know that $660 million has been spent on dodgy car parks. The member for Scullin has gone through it in great detail. There were four car parks in the Victorian seat of Kooyong, five in the Victorian seat of Deakin and six in the seat of Goldstein. Let's have a look at who holds these seats, shall we? When you look at them, there are three rogues: they're all blokes, they're all blue-suit wearers, and they're all liberals, but the thing that struck me is that they're all key figures. We've got the member for Goldstein, a bloke who guzzles his own bathwater and was appointed by the Liberals as the chair of the economics committee; the member for Deakin, another interesting character, who, when he's not stacking branches in an attempt to get rid of the member for Goldstein, is the Assistant Treasurer—that's his side hustle; and then, of course, the member for Kooyong, the federal Treasurer, the bloke who says yes to every pork barrel that rolls past his office but no to JobKeeper. These are the people who are making key economic decisions for this country, and they are the key architects of one of the biggest rorts that this parliament has ever seen. These guys have $4 billion all lined up—your money, taxpayers' money—and they want to use it as if it's Liberal Party money to secure their next federal election.

The people of Australia will not cop it. The Audit Office ran a key comb all over this dodgy program, and they found that 75 per cent of the grants went to Liberal Party seats. It's not surprising, because only Liberal Party MPs were entitled to apply for the money. They're not even good at rorting, because the auditor found they spent 400 per cent more on these dodgy car parks than they would have if they had gone to an open tender. Four hundred per cent more. And how does the minister describe it? Mysterious alchemy! The Australian people have got another name for it. It's not mysterious alchemy; it's rorting.

It's time we called BS on this mob who try to make themselves out as good at managing money—but they are good at managing taxpayers' money into Liberal Party rorts. The people of Australia are not going to buy it. It's not Liberal Party money; it's the Australian taxpayers' money. And, yes, we have a problem with urban congestion and, yes, we need some car parks. But this money should be distributed on the basis of merit and need, not this mysterious alchemy, which ordinary Australians know is nothing more than corruption and rorting—and we will not have it!

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I'm going to ask the member to withdraw the reference to 'corruption'. Corruption is a criminal offence.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. The member for Sturt has the call.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Ballarat for the opportunity that she's given me to confirm two things. The first is the Labor Party's opposition to investing in reducing urban congestion, particularly in my electorate of Sturt—and I will outline in a moment some of the important projects that are being funded through the program that Labor are attacking. It's a fact of great delight to me that I get to report back to my community that Labor don't support the investments that we are making in these vital projects in my electorate. Secondly, I appreciate them giving me the opportunity to outline more broadly the vital investments that we are undertaking in infrastructure across my home state of South Australia.

There are three intersections in my electorate that are being funded through the Urban Congestion Fund that Labor evidently don't support: the Portrush-Magill intersection, $96 million; the Fullarton Crossroad intersection, $61 million; and the Glen Osmond-Fullarton intersection, $35 million—jointly funded from the Urban Congestion Fund with the South Australian state government under fifty-fifty partnerships. These are three excellent projects that are merit based and are focused on helping families and businesses be more productive and to get home quicker and safer, and unclogging congestion in some of the busiest intersections in the city of Adelaide.

The Magill-Portrush intersection alone carries around 65,000 vehicle movements a day. In fact it sits on Highway 1, because of course Portrush Road, running through Adelaide, is part of the national highway network. This project and the other two that I outlined have enormous local community support, and they are an example of a government with the right priorities in infrastructure expenditure investing in the most at-need projects that are made on a merit base. These are three in my electorate, and there are many more throughout the metropolitan Adelaide area and of course other investments throughout South Australia.

The fact that Labor don't support this program, the fact that they attack it and the fact that they don't believe that the people of Sturt deserve to have these sorts of investments in our local infrastructure goes to show why Labor lost the last election. They can rail about the purported lack of support for any of these projects, but I make the simple point that these were all policies that were announced before the election, were taken to the people, and that the people overwhelmingly endorsed.

More broadly in South Australia we have record infrastructure funding coming from the state and federal governments. My good friend here, the member for Grey, unfortunately, because of parliamentary commitments hasn't been able to be at the excellent two milestones in the last few weeks in Port Augusta and Port Wakefield—two excellent projects that are investments in his electorate of Grey but which will also yield enormous productivity benefits and general benefits for the entire state of South Australia. They are exactly the sorts of infrastructure examples that I would point to that show we have the right priorities when it comes to investing in communities throughout South Australia and throughout Australia.

We have record infrastructure in the defence sector, particularly out at the Osborne shipyards. The shipyard investment there, which will underpin the Attack class and Hunter class frigate programs, is the kind of investment that will support thousands and thousands of jobs in the shipbuilding industry, both in my home city of Adelaide and across the nation, for decades and decades to come, whilst also underpinning vital sovereign capability in national security and sovereign naval shipbuilding. This is part of a $270 billion acquisition program over the next 10 years just within the defence portfolio, which goes to show that we are making the important necessary decisions for the long term that are not only about value for money for taxpayers but also underpinning future productive infrastructure—in the case of defence, the sovereign capability for our national security in Australia—as well as making sure that we are making decisions that are in the best long-term interests of the Australian economy.

Very recently, again in my home city of Adelaide, the Prime Minister made an announcement about sovereign missile capability being developed in this country. Of course, I hope the lion's share of that happens in my home state, but, regardless, it's a very sensible example of the kinds of prudent and necessary decisions that we are making with taxpayers' funds, not only underpinning our national security but also ensuring our economic security into the future. I commend all these important decisions that have been made by our government. I'm proud to serve in a government that has our priorities right and is investing in the infrastructure we need for our future. (Time expired)

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] This government's continued misuse of taxpayers' money is nothing short of astonishing. Like the repetitive moments in the movie Groundhog Day, it's another day and another rorting scandal. There were the sports rorts, with the biased distribution of funds and a conflict of interest prompting the resignation of a minister; airport rorts, where the government paid $30 million for a piece of land that was only worth $3 million; car parks, where the Auditor-General reported a $389 million car park construction fund had been administered ineffectively. I quote:

… the Minister had distributed the grants with 'inadequate assessment' for eligibility ...

Also, the Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, was accused of reducing funding to the highest ranked community safety projects and redirecting the funding to projects of his choice, including those not recommended by his department.

The difference between Labor and the Liberals is clear: Labor's policy to establish, for the first time in Australia, a national anticorruption commission will ensure a much needed change to standards of integrity and accountability in the federal government. The powerful and independent national anticorruption commission that Labor will establish stands in stark contrast to the universally condemned model for an integrity commission put forward by the Morrison government. Indeed, Mr Morrison's proposed integrity commission has been described by legal experts as a body designed not to stamp out corruption but to help cover it up. A remedy to the basic failures of public administration by this government is a long time overdue.

Within my electorate of Gilmore, there was the devastation from the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20. The government had previously established the significant $4 billion Emergency Response Fund, providing investment for natural disaster relief and mitigation. Four billion dollars is a huge amount. I have a couple of other important numbers. Firstly: 28. It is exactly 28 months since the $4 billion Emergency Response Fund was announced in April 2019—28 months! The other number is zero. Care to hazard a guess at the total amount that has been drawn down from the fund to improve resilience and to help repair the damage that was created during those devastating bushfires? Correct: zero. It is tragic that money allocated for disaster mitigation is not being used. The most recent Senate estimates found that Emergency Response Fund projects were yet to see funding hit the ground. This fund is earning more in interest than it is using to protect and assist Australians with natural disasters.

All the while, west of Moruya, on the New South Wales South Coast, atop Mount Wandera, sits the main telecommunications infrastructure for the whole of the Eurobodalla. It transmits police, ambulance and fire radio communications, as well as ABC and commercial radio and television, and mobile phone services—critical infrastructure. Extensive damage to the facility in the Black Summer bushfires resulted in the loss of emergency services radio networks and other telecommunications, significantly contributing to the community's fear during the event and, worse still, placing our first responders at higher risk. The asset remains vulnerable. Burnt poles leading to the site were replaced with timber and a tower is surrounded by prolific regrowth as well as dead, dying and fallen trees.

I support Eurobodalla council's efforts there, along with the Eurobodalla Local Emergency Management Committee and the far South Coast bushfire management committee, when calling for urgent funding to replace the timber power poles with more resilient composite poles. Any reasonable Australian would understand that being proactive through regional and remote areas, investing in resilient telecommunications infrastructure, is fundamentally important. Such failures of public administration by this government are just breathtaking— (Time expired)

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] It's a pleasure to join you virtually today. I want to say that I wholeheartedly reject the statement by the opposition which is before the House. I wish to speak on the coalition government's outstanding track record of investment and public administration. Australia is fighting through a once-in-a-century global pandemic. This government led the country through the worst of the impacts on our economy. In fact, Australia was the first advanced economy in the world to return to pre-COVID employment and activity levels. In July 2021 Australia recorded an unemployment rate of 4.6 per cent, which is the lowest level in over a decade. This demonstrates that our government's economic recovery plan is working. We are supporting jobs across the country and have done so throughout the pandemic.

The JobKeeper program was a vital economic lifeline for millions of Australians. It supported more than 3.8 million Australians in one million businesses. In my electorate of Mallee 5,200 businesses and over 20,000 employees were supported throughout the life of the JobKeeper payment. The support has put our nation in a strong position for recovery. Small to medium businesses represent 98 per cent of all JobKeeper recipients across the nation. According to the RBA JobKeeper saved at least 700,000 jobs over the period of April to July last year. But JobKeeper is not the only way this government has supported businesses in my electorate throughout the pandemic. In Mallee the tax-free cash flow boosts helped around 6,400 small and medium businesses with cash payments totalling $236 million. These payments helped small businesses keep up with the bills and in some cases reinvest in their business.

On this side of the House we believe that every individual knows how to spend their money best. That's why we are putting money back into people's pockets, through the extension of the low- and middle-income tax offset. Around 59,500 taxpayers in Mallee will benefit from tax relief of up to $2,745 this year. If those opposite wish to claim that putting money back into the pockets of hardworking Australians is a misuse of taxpayers' money then they have a lot to answer for. These are questions that should rightly be asked of them at the election.

When it comes to the vital infrastructure investments that are driving our economy forward the coalition government's track record is world class. The Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, originally announced at the height of the pandemic last year, has injected billions of dollars into local communities across the country. In Mallee our 12 council shires have shared in $73.5 million over the last 12 months. This money has already delivered fantastic projects across Mallee, including: town hall refurbishments in the Central Goldfields shire; essential drainage works in the township of Murrabit, which Tom O'Reilly, the CEO of the Gannawarra shire, was very excited about; reconstruction and widening of the Echuca-Serpentine Road in Loddon shire; reconstruction of Wargan Road near Merbein in the state electorate of Mallee; streetscape improvements for Napier Street in St Arnaud in the Northern Grampians shire; and Horsham council is getting through their backlog of over 800 footpath repairs. Safer roads foster economic activity and recovery, and our government is committed to making country roads safer for families.

In Mallee the most important road that runs from the top to the bottom of the vast electorate is the Calder Highway. The Liberal-Nationals government has invested $75 million in this road through the Roads of Strategic Importance program. This money is leading to much-needed upgrades of this vital highway, including new overtaking lanes between Ouyen and Mildura, which have been desperately needed on this dangerous stretch of road, as well as the redevelopment of the Bailey Road intersection leading to the iconic Lake Tyrrell, at Sea Lake.

Our government has recently committed a further $10.2 million to safer roads throughout Mallee, thanks to the Road Safety Program. We have recently announced $4.28 million for one of the most notorious roads in Mallee, the Robinvale-Sea Lake Road. Locals and transport drivers alike have been very happy about this investment. If you speak to the people of Mallee they will tell you they want safe roads to get to work and take their kids to school safely.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps Abraham Lincoln's most famous line was:

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Perhaps the Prime Minister should heed Abraham Lincoln's advice, because his own credibility has taken a dive. Confidence in his government is rapidly eroding and trust in his government has all but vanished.

The Prime Minister leads a government characterised by dishonesty, rorts, spin and incompetence. It is a government that believes public funds—that is, taxpayers' hard-earned money—are there for the Liberal and Nationals parties to use as slush funds come election time, to use to win marginal seats. The list of rorts and abuses of office, and the incompetence of this government, grows each day and is there for all to see. And what has been the government's and the Prime Minister's response to all of this? To cut funding to the Auditor-General so that fewer audits can be carried out and less scrutiny can be applied to this government, and to prevaricate over the establishment of a national integrity commission that it has now had eight years to install. And why does it do this? Because it doesn't want independent and credible scrutiny. It doesn't want the spotlight shone on it. It doesn't want its own ministers, including the Prime Minister, to have to answer questions that each and every day they refuse to answer here in this parliament, and during Senate question times, or that they simply don't answer when people put in freedom-of-information requests; they hide behind the rules and the guidelines of that process. At times, as we know, they also hide behind the 'cabinet-in-confidence' line, which we see on a regular basis.

This is a government where the rorts speak for themselves. We had the Safer Communities Fund rorts, where 91 per cent of the $30 million for round 3 of the Safer Communities Fund ended up in government held, independent or marginal seats. We had the car parks rorts, where $660 million was allocated based on the top 20 marginal electorates list which was indeed shared with the Prime Minister's office. We had the sports rorts, a $100 million fund, where Minister Bridget McKenzie had to resign. We had the regional rorts, another $220 million, which incurred a scathing report from the Auditor-General. Ministers overturned departmental advice and 17 per cent of the projects were not even recommended, and ministers overturned departmental advice and gave $5 million to a meat processing business which donated to the coalition.

We then had the road rorts, where 83 per cent of the $3 billion in the Urban Congestion Fund went to coalition and marginal seats. We had the pool rorts, which other speakers have talked about, relating to female facilities and water safety, where two Liberal held seats received half of the $120 million promised. We then had the Leppington Triangle airport land deal, where the government paid $30 million for land valued at $3 million. I heard the minister's response in respect of this matter earlier on today. If the minister is right, then why was the land then in turn released back to the people who sold it to the government for less than $1 million, if it was worth the money he says it was?

It simply doesn't make sense and it doesn't stack up. Of course, we then had the Great Barrier Reef Foundation given $444 million, which I understand they didn't even ask for. I could then turn to the member for Hume, the minister for energy, and we could do a whole MPI on his own efforts in respect to all of this.

We then turn to the government's stacking of government boards, statutory authorities, judicial appointments and heads of departments with Liberal Party and National Party mates and supporters—all to ensure that their agenda is carried through and that there is no scrutiny of what they do. It is little wonder that public trust in government has never been lower. This is a government that treats people with contempt. This is a government with only one agenda, and that is to stay in office and to do whatever it takes to do that. I say to the Prime Minister: the Australian people are not fools—as Abraham Lincoln quite properly alluded to in his own comments—and their patience is fast running out.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great privilege to be able to speak on this motion. In fact, it's welcome that we have the opportunity to talk about these important issues around government expenditure. All Australian money that the government raises comes from the taxpayer, so it should be spent judiciously and prudently in the best interests of the advancement of Australians. The comparison between this side of the chamber and that side of the chamber is that we always think about how it is we can enlarge the best interests of the whole of the Australian population.

You just need to take the federal electorate of Goldstein as but one example. Under Labor governments, we get resources and commitments and financial support for our community at levels that are—I won't use the expression because it would be unparliamentary—virtually non-existent. But all members in this chamber get financial support to support their communities, including in this difficult time.

In fact, members may recall that, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a community-wide program was allocated to just about every single council across the country to enable investment in local infrastructure at a critical time when councils needed assistance and support and local projects needed to be produced, to ensure that local communities got the financial support that they needed. I presume that's what the members on the other side of the chamber are arguing against. They don't want a fair and equitable distribution of resources for community infrastructure in their electorates. Of course, they'll never mention that because, if they did, it would not be consistent with the farcical narrative they bring into this chamber.

I will say this: I was out of the chamber, but a number of members have mentioned to me that the member for Whitlam took particular opportunity to refer to the wonderful electorate of Goldstein during his address, in particular using an expression 'drinking one's own bathwater'. I concede that I had never heard that expression before. I raced to look it up as fast as the press gallery had to race to look up what Kim Beazley meant when he uttered the expression 'boondoggle'. It seems to allege that, as a member in this place, I believe my own fantasies.

Leaving aside those allegations, they seem very familiar to me. I recall that, at the last election, similar sentiments were conveyed by members opposite when I was arguing and campaigning very aggressively against their retiree tax. They kept arguing that my position was a fantasy, despite our constantly putting up Australians all across the country and giving them a platform to voice their own concerns. While they were busy seeking to push 80-year-olds down the financial stairs, we were standing up and giving them a voice. If that's what they mean by 'drinking one's own bathwater', I humbly accept the criticism. Some of us are unafraid to stand up for our communities. Some of us are unafraid to stand up for our country and its best interests.

I note that some of the members previously were talking about the wonderful electorate of Goldstein and the allocation of funding under the Urban Congestion Fund to the City of Glen Eira. In fact, recently, this did become a mild point of controversy, as the City of Glen Eira argued that the investment in the upgrades of commuter car parking at the Bentleigh and Elsternwick stations was unwelcome, despite the fact it was the largest grant ever allocated to the City of Glen Eira. We had Councillor Li Zhang argue against this funding. Is it any surprise that she happens to be a Labor councillor? Councillor Dr David Zyngier, who is a Greens councillor, argued the same. And there was Councillor Tony Athanasopoulos, who is also a Labor councillor.

But my favourite one was the deputy Mayor, Councillor Jim Magee, who was reported in the Nine press as saying:

Councillor Jim Magee said the council didn't ask for the money nor did it have to compete for it "like we always have to do to get government funding" with detailed submissions and heavy lobbying.

"We will gratefully accept money as long as it’s upfront, legitimate and it's for a worthy cause that council has identified as a priority. This council didn't note any of those two car parks as a priority. And this council didn't actually ask for that money."

So what did I do? I went back and flicked through my files before the last election and asked, 'Where did we come up with this ingenious idea that was not received by proposal or by priority?' It just so happens that we had a proposal from the City of Glen Eira, saying that this was a priority project as part of their urban congestion-busting strategy. That's the approach this government takes: priorities, community, outcomes. (Time expired)

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has now concluded.