Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on this issue relating to the order of production of documents. In so doing, I'd like to take up pretty much where Senator Wong left off on this issue and talk about the unprecedented nature of this application. As she said, in all of the time that she has been leader of our great party in the Senate, she's never seen it necessary to take this particular action against Senator Cormann in respect of his representational role in relation to the Prime Minister. But the fact of the matter is that things have got so bad with this government that the Labor Party, the Greens, I think Centre Alliance, One Nation and Senator Lambie are forced into taking action that they don't really want to. We'd prefer for the government to come forward, be transparent, be accountable and produce the documents that we are seeking from the government.

Can I just give one example of the madness of what the government is doing at the moment. The so-called colour-coded document, the key document, identified all of the seats that the government was trying to win at the last election—marginal Liberal seats, marginal National Party seats and Independent seats. All of these seats were colour-coded in the document that was bouncing back and forth between then Minister McKenzie—she's resigned now—and the Prime Minister's office. The ABC has a copy of that document. Good luck to them. I'd like to see it. They're hanging on to it—although they are drip-feeding it, and one suspects there will be more to come. But how crazy is it that we have a situation where the national broadcaster has a copy of this document but this parliament does not have a copy of that document? This government is seeking to deny the accountability and the transparency that's absolutely essential in any government.

I often sit here during question time, as I think you probably do, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, and listen to Senator Cormann. What are often the words that come out of his mouth? 'We are accountable,' and 'We are transparent.' Well, where is that accountability and that transparency on this occasion? This has been an unprecedented scandal in this country and this parliament. A quarter of a billion dollars has gone out the door from this government to its preferred sporting clubs. Let's be clear about this. We have no objection to money going to sporting clubs. We would have done the same ourselves in terms of helping those clubs. The clubs have not done anything wrong here. The group that have done the wrong thing here are the government but, more particularly, the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has absolutely done the wrong thing here, and this quarter of a billion dollars has gone out.

There have been two events here really, and the media have succinctly described them as 'sports rorts 1' and 'sports rorts 2'. 'Sports rorts 1' involved $100 million, and it was as if the minister, Minister McKenzie, was using her own personal cheque account to hand out money to clubs in all of these marginal Liberal and National seats and the seats that the government wanted to win. We thought that was a big number. But of course this week we've found out that there was an even bigger number, and the Prime Minister was using the program as if it were his own chequebook, writing $150 million worth of grants.

Why are people so angry about this? It's because it's a breach of trust between the government and the people. It's not just about the lack of accountability. It's not just about the lack of transparency. It's about the breach of trust. Why is that? Minister McKenzie, when she first announced this program, said: 'This is an above-the-board process. Everything's dinky-di. Everything's transparent. We're going to have a set of guidelines that clubs around the country can access on a website, to look up and see what sorts of programs the government is looking at supporting. But then, when they've put in their application, an independent body will assess the value of those programs.' Sport Australia is the body that we have entrusted with looking after sport in this country, a very important body, pretty dear to the hearts of most Australians, because most Australians play sport. The government said: 'Trust us. We're going to send your application to Sport Australia. They're going to make an assessment. You're going to have an independent assessment of what are the best projects that this government can support with that $100 million.' I might add that, when it first went out, it was only $30 million. That's right—laugh if you will! It was $30 million. Then it was $60 million. Then it was $100 million by a few weeks out from the election.

So the breach of trust here is that more than 2,000 clubs thought that the government was on the level, thought that they could believe what the government said in their guidelines as to what was going to be the determining factor in whether they would or would not get grants. Some of these grants were very large. In South Australia a rugby club, with no women players, got half a million dollars to build women's changing rooms. It's hard to believe.

An opposition senator: Are you serious?

I am serious. Yet a club down the road, the South Adelaide Football Club, an AFL club with a great history, one of the oldest clubs in South Australia, has three women's teams, 45 women players and one toilet. In fact, they had more women's premierships than they had toilets for their women players. Yes, I know you're laughing, but it's a serious matter, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle.

This is a scandal of unbelievable proportions. I described it as industrial pork-barrelling, but it's probably gone well and truly beyond that, and there was a breach of trust. These 2,000-plus clubs put in their applications, thinking that they were going to be assessed on the level. And, of course, they were assessed; those 2,000-plus applications were assessed. Some of them got 98. It's a very good score, 98 out of 100. You would think that would be a winning score. Well, no; it wasn't a winning score. Some clubs scored four—