Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Sadly, this is the second time I have stood here today to draw to the attention of the people who are listening and of the people who, hopefully, will be reading the contributions made by my colleagues and by senators from the Greens in relation to the absolute refusal of this government to be transparent about the expenditure of taxpayers' money.

All we want to know is what the government's intentions are in relation to the funding of infrastructure for the 2032 Olympic Games. Australians are so proud of our sporting culture. We are so proud of our sporting reputation. And we're so proud of the fact that, invariably, when we put on international sporting events, we are heralded around the world as one of the best when it comes to putting on these events.

It is a great deal of concern to us, and Senator McKenzie and I have been speaking about this for some time now, that at this stage, only nine years out—I know that sounds like a long time. But it's not a very long time when you're building the kind of infrastructure and event that the Olympic Games will need to be, to showcase Australia at its best and enable our athletes to stand proud on the international sporting stage for Australia.

We want to know why this government will not provide us, this parliament, and the Australian public with assurances that they have everything in hand. As you just heard from Senator McKenzie and Senator Scarr, there are a whole heap of things that seem to be floating around in the media, about discussions between the federal government and the state government of Queensland, that don't seem to be part of any agreements officially struck in relation to our hosting agreement for the 2032 Olympic Games.

When we were in government, we were very clear about the decision that we would put in place a fifty-fifty funding agreement based on the IOC host agreement for infrastructure build. As Senator McKenzie said, the Gabba redevelopment was not contingent on that host agreement, yet this has been put into the public narrative as if it somehow was. We said we wanted an independent joint oversight authority for overseeing delivery of the infrastructure.

Successive governments in this place have always placed a great deal of importance on Infrastructure Australia, a body that has oversight of the expenditure of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars of Australian taxpayers' money. We've always considered, in this place, that this was an important thing to do. That was why we put in to say that our fifty-fifty agreement to funding with the Queensland government would be contingent on the establishment of such an authority.

I do not understand why the current government will not tell us whether they will establish that authority and provide the level of oversight that taxpayers of Australia, rightly, should expect for expenditure of their money, why they won't tell us what the funding agreement is between the Commonwealth and the state government of Queensland and why they won't tell us what is included in that agreement. It comes as a great deal of concern—following what has not been the greatest reputation of a government in Australia around jobs for the mates, payments to unions, allocation of deals without transparency and allegations of corruption in the behaviour of the Queensland government. You would think that this government—the current Albanese Labor federal government—would be very concerned about handing over some sort of blank cheque to the Queensland government.

I very much hope that they're not going to do that, and I very much hope that they're going to stick to the same sort of accountability, governance and transparency measures that we have come to expect. Handing over a blank cheque—or, for that matter, refusing to reveal what is actually going on with these agreements—leaves us with two suggestions and assumptions to make from this.

One assumption is that they are failing to reach an agreement with the Queensland government—that would be a very serious concern to Australians because it jeopardises our ability to put on the games. I think Senator McKenzie's been on the public record as saying that we need to make sure these games are the best games ever, because the last thing we want to see happen is a fight between the Commonwealth and the Queensland government and we end up with a Rio type games. We can do so much better than that. We deserve to deliver for the Australian public so much more than that. The refusal of this government to provide any information around this particular arrangement leaves us with a great deal of concern.

The other obvious assumption one could jump to, if it's not that they haven't been able to strike a deal, is that they have struck a deal but they just don't want to tell us about it. One would suggest that if they'd struck a really good deal they probably would want to tell us about it. As we saw with the request for information in relation to correspondence between the South Australian and Commonwealth governments about the infrastructure build in my home state of South Australia, the minister comes in here and drops a public interest immunity claim—without any justification as to why he believes the revealing of this particular information is not in the public interest.

Once again I'll put on the record that we absolutely support the value of public interest immunity claims, as they are a mechanism by which we can protect commercial-in-confidence information and other things, such as relationships. But absolutely no evidence has been provided by this government or by this minister as to why their relationship with the Queensland government would be damaged by the release of this information. So we are absolutely supportive of the motion that has been moved by the Greens, demanding that this government come clean with this information.

As Senator Scarr said, we were told initially that the Gabba development was going to be $1 billion, notwithstanding the fact that the IOC hosting agreement did not require the Gabba as part of the infrastructure build for the games. My understanding was that Suncorp Stadium was supposed to be the stadium that is going to host the opening and closing ceremonies. Then, in the blink of an eye, it's now $2.5 billion. Who's conning who here? Is this just a wonderful cash grab by Premier Palaszczuk to see if she can sucker this government into providing Australian taxpayer funds to upgrade a facility that is not required for the delivery of the games?

I suppose the thing that remains the most concerning to me is that we are talking about billions and billions of dollars, and Australia's reputation as one of the best hosts, if not the best host, of international sporting events in the world is being jeopardised by a lack of transparency from this government. So if it does not seem like a reasonable thing that everybody in this chamber and the Australian public have the right to know how billions of their dollars are going to be spent, I think that just shows great contempt by this government for this place and for the people of Australia.

We're sent here to do a really, really important role. I can remember being lectured day after day after day by those opposite, when we were sitting on that side, any time we came in here and tried to suggest that there was some piece of information that shouldn't be released. I certainly know I always used to try and make sure I had a very sound reason behind why I wasn't releasing a piece of information. But they're just saying, with complete contempt and arrogance, 'We're not going to give you anything at all about spending billions of Australian taxpayers' dollars, but we're also not even going to tell you why.' It's just apparently going to damage the relationship between a Labor federal government and a Labor state government! I just cannot understand how the minister, who is clearly under instructions from the substantial minister for infrastructure, in the other place, can just come in here, dump this and run.

Clearly, there is a level of transparency and accountability that is missing from this government, which is so extraordinarily hypocritical when you consider that was the mantra that it took to the Australian public when it sought to be elected by the Australian public. It seems to me this government is happy to make all the headlines, all the promises and all the nice lines, and tell the Australian public everything they want to hear—that it is going to do everything that the Australian public, rightly, should expect them to do. But, when it comes to delivering, they say, 'Sorry, we won't tell you anything about it,' or maybe, 'We just won't do it.'

I would say to those opposite: have a very serious think, because we're going to keep coming back to this. And I thank the Greens, because obviously they are equally as interested in transparency as we are. We're going to keep coming back into this chamber and using the power of this chamber to demand transparency from this government, the executive government of this country, on the decisions it makes that affect Australian lives and the expenditure of Australian taxpayers' hard-earned funds. We'll keep doing that, and, if you want to keep being contemptuous towards the Australian public by refusing to answer, we'll keep telling them that you are contemptuous.