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

No! What do you make of that? A few weeks ago, when what we now know as 'sports rorts 1' first came out, what was the Prime Minister's defence? The Prime Minister's defence was, 'This is a terrific scheme, because it's providing new facilities for women's sport in this country.' It's a very admirable aim. As I've said time and again, we have no objection to these clubs getting that money. They've all behaved in a proper way. The guilty party here is not the sporting clubs for applying to improve their facilities; the guilty party here is the government for the way it has deceived the Australian people. But, more particularly, it's deceived the more than 2,000 clubs that applied for the first round of sports rorts 1.

In particular, all of those clubs who missed out on the first round—the first $100 million—and who saw this press release, which was a front page story in every newspaper in the country, thought they genuinely had a chance of getting that money. The reality was the government said the program was designed to improve facilities for women in this country so they had decent toilets and change rooms and didn't have to change behind the shed out the back, but less than 15 per cent of this money was spent on women's change rooms. Here's a program, and the government says, 'Vote for us, because we're going to fund all this positive infrastructure for women's sport.' How much did they spend on that? It was less than 15 per cent.

In your own state, Deputy President, I know that you're aware of this money going to swimming pools and not women's change rooms. There's nothing wrong with swimming pools; it's a good thing that kids—especially young kids—learn to swim. My grandson is learning at the moment to swim in a pool. But this government deceived sportspeople right across the country.

I made this point yesterday: hundreds of volunteers spent thousands of hours preparing these applications and thinking that this scheme was on the level. If this were such a good scheme, if the government were so proud of this scheme and if the government spent all its activity and time sending out press releases, talking to editors of newspapers around the country and getting them to write this story, why did the government overnight take this press release down?

One reason, we know, is that this money didn't go to improving female sporting facilities around the country. This money went overwhelmingly to marginal Liberal-held seats, marginal National Party seats and those seats which the government wanted to target from the Independents. I'd be embarrassed, too, if I were a prime minister who stood up and said, 'We're going to support women's change rooms in this country,' but all I did was spend the money on a couple of swimming pools in the seat of Corangamite and a couple of swimming pools in the seat of the Attorney-General, Mr Porter. That's where that money was spent.

I probably haven't spoken enough on this next particular point; I'll try to correct that now. One of the other defences that the government has been using is that all these people were eligible to get these grants. Well, that's not what the Auditor-General found. There is one line in the report that refers to the fact that, at the initial stage, all of the claims were eligible. But, by the time the money came to be distributed, that was not the case, from a close reading of the Auditor-General's report. And it's an excellent report, I have to say: detailed, forensic, and honest—something, of course, the government is not. I'd like to refer to some of the areas where, clearly, the grants that the government made were not eligible.

One of the criteria was that you couldn't have completed the project if you were applying for the money. Well, eight projects had been completed before the money arrived, before they signed their contracts—clearly, in breach of the guidelines. Four grants were received by clubs after the closing date of applications. After we saw that scandalous photograph of the big cheque at the Yankalilla bowls club, the member for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, said: 'I've got other clubs in my area that would also like to apply for this money. If you are handing out $100 million, I've got other clubs that want to do it.' She was told: 'Bad luck; applications have closed.' Four clubs were allowed to submit applications after the closing date.