Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are again—another day, another corrupt coalition cover-up. It's becoming a bit run-of-the-mill; you just expect it. It is another day of an order for the production of documents, of information that is critical to having some transparency and accountability of how our processes of government are working or not working, and another day of ministers fronting up, giving a very terse, very short non-explanation of why they can't provide that information and then fleeing the chamber.

This is serious, and the Australian community know it is serious. This smells, and the Australian community know it smells. It's not something confined to this chamber, this parliament or, indeed, the so-called Canberra bubble. It's interesting, because this has permeated out to ordinary people all around the country. They know that there is corruption going on here. They know that there is a complete lack of accountability. They know that there is some serious, unfair, dodgy play going on.

The excuses that we've been given, that it's cabinet-in-confidence or that they just haven't quite had the time to get together the documents that the press gallery have had for three weeks, just don't wash. The Australian community know that they don't wash. The reason they know they don't wash is that this is a huge amount of money we're talking about. We've got sports rorts No. 1, of $100 million, and sports rorts No. 2, of $150 million. That is $250 million in all—a quarter of a billion dollars of our precious taxpayer money. It is staggering that this huge amount of money is basically just being used by this government as a slush fund to buy their way back into power.

They think they can get away with it. You hear the excuses. In spite of the report of the Australian National Audit Office, which lays it out chapter and verse—it is gobsmacking just how detailed it is and how much the Auditor-General's report says that there are some extremely questionable practices going on here—they just reckon they can tough it out. We've had Senator McKenzie being the scapegoat and taking the fall, but it wasn't even on the basis of the issues raised in the Auditor-General's report. There is no accountability. They reckon they can get away with it. But, I can tell you, they're not going to get away with it, because we have got $250 million and it goes to the heart of something that Australians care an awful lot about. They care about their sport. When it comes to sport, they particularly care about their community sporting clubs. People care about the basics of the way that sport operates—that is, that you have a fair process, that you have a level playing field, that both teams get the opportunity to compete on an equal basis. We can see that that is not what happened here with this allocation of $250 million.

The information we haven't been given—the colour coded spreadsheet that the media have had for three weeks but that Senator Colbeck says he hasn't quite had time to get together—lays out the Prime Minister's involvement; it wasn't just Senator McKenzie and her office. It lays out that there were decisions being made as to where that money would be spent, and it was going to favour the seats they wanted to win. We've asked for the legal advice because it seems quite likely that the minister actually didn't even have legal authority to be able to approve these grants. We've asked for the communications between the Minister for Sport and the offices of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. Of course—surprise, surprise!—we haven't been given this information because it's very clear that once this information comes out—and it will come out eventually—the trail will be there. It will be very clear that this goes far beyond just Bridget McKenzie on her own, having the idea: 'Well, I might put a bit of extra money and show a bit of favouritism to these few sports clubs.' No, this was a process that was cooked up by the government as a whole to say, 'Let's use this $250 million as a fund to help buy us government.'

I say that this isn't going to go away, that they can't tough it out, because it is something that people care about. It goes the heart of sport, which we all know is incredibly important to the Australian people. I live in Footscray, in the electorate of Gellibrand, which up until now has been for pretty much the whole of its existence a safe Labor seat. I can tell you that sports people and the community in the electorate of Gellibrand know that, being a safe seat, they're sadly not going to get the same funding, the same largesse, as marginal seats. They've known it all along. It leads to cynicism about politics. It leads to them wondering what's the point. It leads to the attitudes leading to the record low levels of trust in our democracy. This revelation really just makes those people even more cynical and even more tuned out of politics.

It is not the way it should be. Those sports clubs, whether they're in Footscray or Sunshine or Ardeer or St Albans, should have the same chance as the sports clubs in the Prime Minister's electorate or the sports clubs in the marginal seats the government is trying to win. You see this laid out, and they know that they haven't. It goes to their sense that it's just not fair. It is just not sporting behaviour. They put in all the time supporting their clubs which have dodgy sporting grounds, dodgy changing rooms and grounds that haven't seen an upgrade for 50 years. They put in all the time as volunteers, being there as umpires for the matches, taking the kids' uniforms home and handing out the oranges at quarter time. Yet they are not treated the same. They know that they didn't have a chance in these grant application rounds; the system was rigged against them from the start. They know that that's not right.

Then there are other clubs in other safe electorates no-one is interested in, such as the electorate of Gippsland. The Gippsland roller derby club has an incredible reputation in the community of supporting diversity in the community, encouraging the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to be involved in sport, and they are doing great work. They put in an application. Their application was judged by Sport Australia to get 97 out of 100, and yet they missed out on a grant. They were only asking for $40,000, yet we have half a million dollars given to sports clubs in order to buy those votes.

I can tell this government that it doesn't wash and that it has permeated outside the Canberra bubble. This is going to haunt them completely to the next election because the people who really care about our democracy, people who really care about whether they can trust that decisions are made in an accountable and transparent way, know that it is not acceptable. It really goes to the heart of what we want to see in government. When we ask questions about this, we hear the government say all the time that they reject the premise of the question. Well, I want to let this government know that, come the next election, we are going to reject the premise of this government.