Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is the Howard government, its regional rorts program. We are dealing with mismanagement and the Howard government provided the rolled gold standard of mismanagement under this program. It goes on to say:

... ANAO analysis revealed that Ministers were more likely to approve funding for ‘not recommended’ projects—

I repeat ‘not recommended’ projects—

that had been submitted by applicants in electorates held by Liberal and National parties and more likely to not approve funding for ‘recommended’ projects that had been submitted by applicants in electorates held by the Labor party.

I will quote back to the opposition their favourite source, the Australian:

Jim Nelson’s jaw dropped in surprise when he heard John Howard announce three years ago that his railway society had just received $845,000 for a tourist project in the southwest of Western Australia.

Mr Nelson didn’t know anything about the announcement and neither did the federal Department of Transport and Regional Services, which was supposed to assess all projects funded under the Regional Partnerships Program.

That is the kind of management that the Howard government conducted. So the opposition are once more giving us this golden opportunity to remind them of their gross incompetence in this area and gross rorting of a great deal of federal government money—the waste that was poured into a number of those projects that were not adequately assessed and, indeed, never really got off the ground. That is what waste and mismanagement is about.

The opposition have come in here and said that we should have done more in the time we have been in government. I am standing here looking at page 26 of today’s Notice Paper, which has nearly three pages of bills discharged or negatived because of the current opposition not allowing the Rudd Labor government to get on with the job, to fulfil its programs and to work efficiently in the best interests of the Australian public. The opposition come in here time after time with their negative comments and their negative votes without putting forward any alternative. The opposition have not put through revenue measures from the last budget and have not allowed us to proceed with well-structured programs that would allow benefits to the Australian people. Indeed, they have signalled that they will do that again with this budget. I do not know what we will hear from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, this evening in his budget-in-reply speech. We are all hoping that we might hear something substantial rather than the ‘No, we will not pass the resource rent tax; no, we will not pass this and we will not pass that’ because they are bereft of any ideas. Of course, it is perfectly easy to criticise programs and we heard Senator Williams address the Building the Education Revolution Program and the Home Insulation Program, which were part of the government’s stimulus package. I have been to two openings of BER schools.