Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You have to ask the question: why would somebody who seeks to be the deputy leader of the Labor Party in the Senate raise such a pathetic point of order? Is this the best the Labor Party have to offer the Australian people? It seems that it is.

Coming back to the Belconnen Tennis Club—you won't distract me from that one, Senator Farrell. There was the claim being made that, somehow, they may have missed out because this was deep, dark Labor territory. But then, when asked: can you explain about the other 15 grants or so made in the ACT—unable to explain. What is more, the ACT got 1.5 per cent of the funding from this grants scheme. The ACT represents 1.6 per cent of the Australian people. Talk about bang-on equitable in relation to population and distribution of funding! But no, we've got this allegation that, somehow, funding was denied to the ACT because the three seats vote Labor. The hyperbole from Labor is always pretty good, I've got to say, but it always lacks the fact and the detail.

Can I indicate—and it's not, I think, any secret here—that Senator McKenzie, when she appeared before the committee some six days ago, performed exceptionally well, and that Labor, despite their pathetic and desperate attempts, were, to use a sporting analogy, unable to lay a glove on her. They missed! Do you know why? It's because there was no substance to the allegations that were being sought to be made against the former minister. She had performed exceptionally well. She had involved herself to ensure that there was an equitable and appropriate distribution.

Of course, the other thing that this committee has not done is call forward those organisations who were successful—those who, but for the minister's involvement, would not have been successful. Oh, I wonder why we wouldn't have called them as witnesses! It might have destroyed the pathetic narrative of Labor and the Greens in this committee. This committee has now become quite a debacle of a show. The quicker it wraps up, the better. The determinations were made before the first witness was ever called. I'm sure that, in the minds of Labor and Greens senators on the committee, the report was already finalised. And, mark my words, despite the Auditor-General never having used derogatory terms like 'rort' et cetera, their report will be peppered with those sorts of words, denying all the facts. They won't be talking about the percentages and the effective administration by the minister to ensure equity, or the fact that more clubs got money; no, they'll be banging on about hyperbole and unfairness.

They'll also ignore the fact that Sport Australia themselves said that the numerical rating of the club's project alone would not have been the sole determinant for them and that they would have taken other matters into account as well. What is also unfortunate for the Labor Party is that, even in this numerical ranking, when two individuals in Sport Australia separately, independently, analysed the same project—and this is how subjective the business is—do you know what the variation was? The variation was up to 30 points! So somebody may have marked a project at 70 per cent, while somebody else, looking at exactly the same paperwork and exactly the same project, would have marked it at 40 per cent. The chances are that, for those of us who had to do exams from time to time, we would have thought that the marking of an exam paper, or any assessment, that had a variation of some 30 per cent would not exactly have been the most robust manner in which to undertake an assessment. The reliance on the figure of 74 being a cut-off point is ridiculous. Even Sport Australia rejects that assertion.

So you've got to ask the question: other than sheer rank politics, what is it that motivates Labor and the Greens? They are forcefully trying to put words into the Auditor-General's mouth, which the Auditor-General won't accept. They have sought to assert that Sport Australia would have done something different. Sport Australia has acknowledged that that is not the case. Sure, they've brought before the committee disappointed organisations that missed out. I understand that. Wouldn't it have been good if we could have funded each and every organisation? But, surprisingly, Labor and the Greens have seen no need to call before us organisations that actually did succeed in getting the funding.

In the few moments left, I want to mention the lack of self-awareness by some local government organisations that came before us, who indicated that they were at a loss to understand how their project missed out. When they were simply asked, 'Do you have council officers that make recommendations to council which the elected council then takes it upon itself to reject?' the mayors and CEOs of the councils all had to agree and accept that, yes, that occurs from time to time. And then when asked, 'What's the difference at the federal level if officers make a certain recommendation and the elected official makes a determination otherwise?' they were at a loss to explain. The way our system works is very simple. We have advisers, but the elected officials are the deciders, and that's the important task here to grasp, something which I'm sure the intellectual acuity of those opposite allows them to understand but they conveniently reject so that they can keep peddling this quite nasty mantra against the former minister in a vain attempt to besmirch the government. This grants program has delivered $100 million to over 680 organisations around the country, and sport in Australia is better off for it and because of Senator McKenzie's involvement in the program.

Question agreed to.