Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

and we were all going to be held to a much higher level of accountability. I will come to you in a minute, Senator Collins, if you like. The fact of the matter is that, in that time, Labor did implement those new standards and then proceeded to either ignore them or water them down on the way through. If I look at government advertising, for example, we were promised a new regime—a regime which included a much more active role for the Auditor-General. But when push came to shove around important items, like the much-lamented carbon tax, for example, the government watered down the guidelines about the extent to which outside bodies and outside experts would be allowed to scrutinise these major pieces of government expenditure.

So advertising failed. We come to the grants process we were talking about today in question time. Again, a fail. Senator Wong was unable or unwilling to name the ministers who, in 33 cases, had failed to disclose that they made grants in their own electorates. This was a requirement that this government had put in. It is not something that we required of them. In our time we had robust internal processes for this sort of thing. Labor made a big song and dance about the fact that it was a new dawn in this area, yet the minister has failed to hold those ministers to account—House of Representatives ministers in all those cases. In particular she has failed to hold to account those ministers who may have made grants against the recommendation of their own department. Again, it is a failure of transparency. Fail on that one. Going further, I note that if Penny Wong's department had reviewed the 33 cases and determined there was no concern why could she not name the ministers? What have they got to hide? If a department has the information, as opposed to the Audit Office, how can it be audit in confidence? The fact of the matter is that the information is out there. We know there are 33 cases and the minister should have named them.

I could go on to a slew of issues around FOI and electorate funding, where promises were made by the government and have not been kept. But we come to the governance of the Future Fund, and again we have a seriously corrupted selection process. Why? First of all, we had a search firm given the job of identifying candidates and its job was cut short. We are then told that David Gonski, a respected figure in corporate Australia, was brought into the equation. He seems to have been given the job of talking to the guardians of the Future Fund to ask them what they wanted. You do not ask someone what they want unless you are seriously going to take their views into account. It seems that Gonski was sent off to do that. He came back with the answer. They did not like the answer, so there had to be a further process. It shows the lack of imagination and the lack of contacts and networks of this government, and this Treasurer in particular, in corporate Australia. They could not think of anybody else but the person who happened to be in front of them. As good a person as he may be and as well connected as he may be, they had no alternative—and they were up against the clock: they had to do something; they had to appoint someone. They looked around the room and they said: 'Well, Gonski's here and he doesn't seem to be demurring. Maybe we should get him to do the job. Maybe he'll be okay.'

Then we have the farce that Senator Cormann has highlighted so well around the leak to the Financial Review. How absurd is it that the Financial Review has more access to the workings of this government than this parliament? What an insult to this parliament. We have to do much better than that. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.