Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

Coming from the princes of pork-barrelling in that far corner, let me be very clear. We have Auditor-General report after Auditor-General report demonstrating how corrupt the processes of the former government were when it came to allocating regional development funds. Senator Joyce, don't come in here and think you can, with a remote sense of credibility, complain about a proper process which is being gone through when you have the track record of those regional rorts and those regional rorters that the Auditor-General so cruelly exposed so regularly.

The projects seeking funding may address new priorities arising out of the MOU and the new RDA committee's engagement with the local communities. The independent RDAF panel will assess and prioritise Western Sydney region projects against the same criteria as all the other applications. (Time expired)