Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in response to Senator Ryan’s motion to take notice of answers today in question time. What is not accepted by the opposition in this place at this time is that these decisions have been made at arm’s length from the government. They will not accept that. They prefer to accept the allegation that more of the funding has gone into Labor held seats, which is not correct. Assessments have been made by an independent panel at arm’s length from this government—something that the previous government did not do. All I need do is cite the rural and regional grants paid through the area consultative committees as an example. The grants were controlled entirely by the minister, dished out entirely according to where or where not their members in marginal seats had been re-elected at the previous election. The coalition government had a grants program allocated through the area consultative committees. The minister kept a stranglehold on them in his office, where they were vetted absolutely by ministerial staff and the minister and where they were given out absolutely according to where they could curry the most favour with those in the electorate.

If we have a look here at two of the programs I assume that the opposition are talking about, the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program provided funding to every—every—council and shire in this country. Under the $800 million community infrastructure program the government is delivering funding to every council regardless of their political persuasion and regardless of what sort of political electorate representative they have. Let us get this very clear here. It is being delivered to every council and shire in this country regardless of the electorate. Fifty-three per cent of the stimulus was directed to Labor held electorates but in fact Labor MPs actually comprised 55 per cent of the House of Representatives. So again, every council and shire in the country received funding from the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, the largest ever federal investment in local infrastructure.

Three of the top four grants were provided to coalition electorates, so it flies in the face of anything that we have heard from people on the other side of the chamber this afternoon. Three of the four largest single project grants are in coalition electorates. What are they? The safe Liberal seat of Moncrieff received the largest single grant of $36 million towards a new 25,000-seat AFL and sports stadium at Carrara. Where is the bias in that? It is nowhere. There is fairness and accountability in this.

Einasleigh River in Kennedy, which is held by the Independent member Bob Katter, got $18 million. Then we have the Flinders Street Mall in Townsville, which is in the seat of Herbert, another coalition held electorate, $16.2 million. There is the Goulburn River High Country Rail Trail in the seat of Indi, held by Mrs Mirabella, and the electorate of McEwen, which received $13.2 million. Again, four of the largest projects handed out are actually in coalition seats. So you cannot stand up on the other side of the chamber and allege that there is some gerrymandering of money being handed out—a cash splash—to Labor seats under this government. The figures defy that and show otherwise.

In a state by state breakdown, in New South Wales the total amount of funding was $138.5 million. Sixty-five per cent of the money is going to Labor seats, and Labor has 50 per cent of the seats. In coalition and other seats we have $47.2 million. So if we want to have a look at what is happening with this funding, we can see that the majority of seats that have the largest grants are coalition held seats.

If we go to the questions from Senator Ryan today about the science and language centres, again and again this opposition has been told that an independent panel has made that assessment. The BER guidelines were released in February. They stated that DEEWR would convene an independent assessment panel, which they did. That panel looked at the criteria and made recommendations. (Time expired)