Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Agriculture (Senator McKenzie) to questions without notice asked by Senators Urquhart and Green today relating to the administration of regional grants programs.

Senator McKenzie was meant to be representing the Deputy Prime Minister today. The questions that I asked and that Senator Green asked flowed from front pages in the Cairns Post and the Launceston Examiner. Both of these newspapers are fine regional newspapers, yet the Deputy Prime Minister's office failed to adequately brief the representing senator. So it appears to me that Nationals senators clearly don't follow the regional news.

Minister McKenzie also misled the chamber in her response to my primary question. She said, 'All information in relation to applications is publicly available online.' Well, it is not. So the Deputy Prime Minister's office needs to properly brief Minister McKenzie, and then Minister McKenzie needs to come in here to the chamber and admit that she misled the chamber on that particular point. Her key talking point was that the critics are cherry-picking. No-one is cherry-picking. The whole Auditor-General's report is scathing.

My first question was: 'What evidence did ministers rely upon in awarding the grant'—the grant that I was talking about was the $365,000 for a food van on Flinders Island in Tasmania—'and the co-funding exemption.' Minister McKenzie sought to take that on notice. The Auditor-General's report said that the department recommended the project but advised the ministerial panel that the applicant supplied limited evidence to support their case. That's what the Auditor-General's report said: that it 'supplied limited evidence to support their case' for a co-funding exemption. Of the 233 grants that were rewarded nationwide, the Killiecrankie food van on Flinders Island was one of just four projects that was exempted from a co-funding arrangement—just four. I go back to the Auditor-General's report, which said that the department recommended the project but advised the ministerial panel that the applicant supplied limited evidence to support their case for that exemption for co-funding. So why is the proponent not contributing even one cent to this project? What does that say about the viability of the enterprise?

My second question went to the issue of what steps the government had taken to ensure that that $365,000 for a food van represented value for money. Again, Senator McKenzie took that question on notice.

So my questions are: did the ministerial panel re-evaluate this application after it was changed? The original application was for a physical cafe and community centre. It was then changed to a food van. Did the ministerial panel re-evaluate the application based on the changed circumstances from a physical cafe—a building and a community centre—to a food van? There is a lot of difference between those two scenarios. How much does a food van cost? The minister should come and answer that. Could it really cost $365,000? It's a lot of money for a caravan on wheels—a lot of money. Is the van being retrofitted in Tasmania? That's another question I would put to the minister. And how many jobs are actually being created on North Flinders Island as a result of this? And how many jobs are actually being created in Tasmania from this $365,000 being spent on a food van?

I would go back to the minister and say: 'Come in here and clear up the discrepancies. Give us a full, comprehensive outline of the details around why this particular project does not require the proponent to put in one cent. And why has it been funded fully by the government through this project?' (Time expired)