Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

What we have seen time and time again from the Prime Minister and the government is a lack of transparency and an absolute unwillingness to actually produce documents requested by this chamber—documents on their programs! With the Stronger Communities Program, if there were nothing to hide, you would think they would be willing to present the documents we're asking for without fear or favour. You would think they would be willing to shout from the rooftops what a success that program has been, but clearly not. It should be a great program, delivering for our regional communities and, importantly, delivering for our volunteer organisations.

I want to tell you how important grant programs are, like what the Stronger Communities Program should be, like what we had when we were in government—the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, which was highly successful and highly sought after and delivered a huge amount of benefit for regional communities. There is not one community that I have visited that hasn't shown me a community infrastructure facility and said, 'This was delivered through your Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program,' like the former government's Building Better Regions Fund, where communities identify what they need. Organisations like our state emergency services are run by volunteers, who have sheds and just need that little bit of support to upgrade, to do some maintenance or, in the case of so many, put in female change rooms. A lot of our regional and rural fire services' sheds were built at a time when, unfortunately, not many female volunteers were welcomed.

Times have changed, but infrastructure has not caught up. These organisations used things like the Building Better Regions Fund, used things like the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, and should be using the Stronger Communities Program to help make their places more welcoming for female volunteers, for volunteers of different abilities and for volunteers from different cultures. But we don't know, because we don't have the documents. This government is not being transparent. This government, which promised transparency, has become the government of nondisclosure agreements, of secrecy and of hiding behind things like commercial confidentiality. It is not good enough. We deserve more openness from this government. We deserve to know what investigations they've done before hurtling into a promise to purchase Rex Airlines. Don't get me wrong: as someone who lives in regional Australia and who is dependent on Rex Airlines—being the only airline that services the Narrandera-to-Sydney route—I want to see Rex Airlines continue to fly. But does it have to be Rex, or could that route be serviced by another regional airline? What investigations have this government done to see if the routes serviced by Rex could be serviced by another commercial operator so I don't have to rely on 'Albo Airways'?