David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure that all members of this House are very much looking forward to the release, shortly, by the Auditor-General of his inquiry into round 6 of the Mobile Black Spot Program. Everyone will welcome the thorough investigation by the Auditor-General, because of course this was a shameful and sordid misuse of public funds. You'll recall, of course, that, under this fund, the Minister for Communications hand-picked the locations to receive funding. And guess what? It's a remarkable coincidence, but 100 per cent of the locations that the Minister for Communications chose in New South Wales were in electorates held by the Australian Labor Party! Isn't it remarkable? It is just an extraordinary coincidence! The funny thing is, oddly, precisely the same thing happened in Victoria: 100 per cent of the allocations were in Labor seats. That's why the Auditor-General's been very thoroughly and very forensically going through all of the information here, and we look forward to seeing his report. I hope the minster has provided him with documents, because, of course, the minister put formal submissions to the Information Commissioner about why she should not provide any documents in response to freedom of information requests on this topic. That tells you everything you need to know. It's a shameful misuse of public funds. We very much look forward to seeing that Auditor-General report very soon.