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

Once again we see this government hiding in respect of the actions that it took on the so-called Female Facilities and Water Safety Stream program. In a moment I'm going to report on something that I think you'll find quite shocking, Deputy President, because I know you've taken quite a bit of interest in these issues, particularly in your home state of Western Australia and some of the terrible things that have gone on there in respect of this program. But I want to go through what we know about the program that the Prime Minister and the former minister, Minister McKenzie, reported on 30 March last year.

Governments always want to make the most of these sorts of announcements, and it was a very big announcement, of $150 million. It came on top of an earlier announcement of $100 million, so it was almost a quarter of a billion dollars being announced in respect of sporting programs across the country. The Prime Minister was very, very keen to get this message out, as was the minister. You might recall—because, as I said, you've taken a bit of interest in this—that just about every single newspaper in the country got an advance notice about this report, and it was a front-page story on just about all of them: what a terrific job the Prime Minister and the Minister for Sport at the time were going to do in respect of women's changing rooms. Remember we heard the Prime Minister say he didn't want women having to change behind the sheds. He wanted proper, decent, modern facilities for them. I kept a copy of that press release, and it's good that I did, because, if you go to the online portal where this press release is meant to be kept by the government, it's not there. It has disappeared. The government overnight has taken down its press release in respect of that 30 March press conference.