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

We've heard Senator Cash again denying the Senate the information that we need to see, denying the Australian public the information that we need to see, which would shine a spotlight on what's been going on in the corrupt practices of this government. We need to see this information so the Australian public can see the extent of the rorting, the corruption, the attempt to buy seats at the last election that really occurred. Similarly, we've been told that the government just need more time to get their information together. I'm not holding my breath that we'll actually see the information. Maybe we'll be surprised, in which case that would be great, but I do not expect that we're going to see the detail of that information come in a fortnight's time.

This is important. When people look at governments around the world they are rightly critical of governments and of parties and of underperforming democracies or other underperforming political systems where they see elections being bought, where they see corruption going on. The Australian public don't like to believe that that's the case here. The Australian public actually want to believe that our democracy is pretty fair—that decisions do get made on an accountable, transparent, fair basis and that elections aren't bought. Yet the evidence that we are waiting on today and the stink of what is going on today show that we are just as susceptible here in Australia as those under some of the other governments around the world which are clearly corrupt. That's not how it should be. It's not what the Australian public have signed up for. They want to see elections being carried out on a completely level playing field. They don't want to see votes being bought, whether it's by these sporting programs or whether it's by massive donations such as those made by Clive Palmer to try to buy the election for this government.

This is of critical importance. It's why we need to have an anticorruption watchdog: to actually be able to uncover these sorts of nefarious activities. As to this $150 million female facilities and water safety program that we are not, as yet, getting information about: what we know about it is that it was announced in the 2019 budget. There was the expectation—from sports people and from local governments and other organisations that run sporting facilities around the country—that there was going to be a grant application process. You'd think that would've been a sensible way of going, in order to be able to assess one application against another, to see what would be the best use of scarce taxpayers' funds, scarce government funds. So it is announced in the 2019 budget, and then we find that, suddenly, two months before the election, there is this flurry of grants being announced—just so that those voters, particularly in those marginal seats, could ostensibly be impressed and say, 'Oh look—the government's delivering me a pool, so I've got to vote for them!'

The analysis of where this money was spent is really telling. There was 58.5 per cent that was spent in marginal seats, and, when you add in other seats that the government was trying to hang on to—in particular, Kooyong and Farrer—that rises to 73 per cent. This, I repeat, was without any application process; it was just largesse that was put into those seats. In total, $111 million out of $150 million was spent in marginal seats.

We have talked about what the facilities were that went to the beneficiaries of this money, but I just want to lay them out, because it really tells the story. We've got the biggest grant, $25 million, being spent on the Ellenbrook pool in the marginal seat of Pearce. Then we have the marginal seat of Corangamite, which, in the end, was lost by Sarah Henderson, but the government was going all out to try to maintain that seat for the government: $20 million was spent on a pool in Torquay; $10 million was spent on the Bellarine aquatic centre. It wasn't because the community was actually saying: 'These are the projects that we must have.' No. It was because of the sense that these would be big, splashy projects that they could announce, to get in the headlines and encourage people to vote for the Liberal Party. We had $20 million spent on the South Perth aquatic centre. Another half a million dollars was spent at the Broulee surf club in the seat of Gilmore, which Warren Mundine was trying to win. Then of course we had the situation of the tidal pool at Port Macquarie where the local council didn't even know about the application. It wasn't a priority of the council. It was actually a small group of residents who thought this was a good idea. And that small group of residents, when they heard they'd got the funding, didn't even know about it. I mean, this isn't good, accountable, transparent decision-making. This is just throwing money randomly, wildly, at marginal seats to try and win votes.

What I want to focus on now is this. The people and the communities that got this money and these facilities are not going to complain about it, because no-one actually complains about that; they say: 'All right. We've got $20 million for a pool. Well, that's nice. Why not. Let's have a new pool.' What I want to talk about is the communities that missed out. Sadly, they are the communities that have often been missing out for years—for decades. They are often also the communities where you have people that could really benefit from investment in community infrastructure.

I grew up in the western suburbs of Melbourne. They are safe Labor seats. For my whole life they've been safe Labor seats. I was a councillor in the City of Maribyrnong. It was in the electorate of Gellibrand, which is one of the safest Labor seats in the country. When I talk to my neighbours and my community, they are resigned to the fact that they know that this is what's going on. They know that as people who live in safe Labor seats—it's the same, in fact, if you live in a safe National Party seat—they are never going to be the focus of suddenly having $20 million thrown at them for a pool. They know that and are resigned to that fact: 'Oh well, we live in a safe Labor seat. We're going to get nothing.' This isn't how it should be. It is corrupt. It is really corrupt decision-making, but that is the case.

Before I was on Maribyrnong council I was one of the key organisers of the campaign to save the Footscray pool. Footscray has been a wonderful diverse community for all of its life. It's got a huge socioeconomic mix, with a lot of people who are really struggling. The Footscray pool was a really important community facility, but could we get any money from the state or federal governments to try to upgrade this pool? We got a pittance from the state government and absolutely nothing from the federal government of the time. Sadly, the Footscray pool ended up closing and the land being sold off. The only way that council could see its way to maintaining an aquatic facility in Maribyrnong was to do a dodgy deal with the private sector to sell off a bit of public land to get some money from Sussan Corporation, who ran Highpoint Shopping Centre, and build the pool next to Highpoint. It was seen as being a win-win, because Sussan got this new attractor of lots of people right next to Highpoint Shopping Centre, but it was not the right option, and it was an option that the council was forced into only because there was no money available from the state and federal governments to invest in an aquatic centre in a region that desperately needed it.

It's the same in the case of the outer western suburbs and the outer south-eastern suburbs—suburbs like Dandenong and Springvale—which just don't have $20 million thrown at them. It's not right. It's not the way that we should be allocating precious government money.

I am hoping that at the end of this process, this saga of uncovering all the corruption that's going on under sports rorts 1 and 2, there will be a realisation that this is got to end. Not only do we need an anticorruption watchdog with teeth, but we need to completely reform and reconsider how these grants projects work. We've actually got an example of a grant allocation funding mechanism that works really well. It's the Australia Council, which gives out money to arts projects. The problem with the Australia Council is that it doesn't have enough money to give out, but, basically, the arts organisations know that it has a fair and objective funding process and that if you put your applications in and they meet the criteria they'll get funded. That's the sort of process that we need so that we can have objective decision-making, with projects being assessed against criteria to get rid of this rorting, to get rid of this buying of votes, to get rid of this corruption in the system. I call upon both the Labor and Liberal parties to join the Greens in actually working for the community in this way rather than working for their own perverse electoral interests.

Question agreed to.