Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked by Senator Hanson today relating to Indigenous organisations.

It doesn't matter that ACS is registered under South Australian legislation. They administer more than $20 million of federal taxpayers' funds, so they must be accountable to federal taxpayers. The fact that ACS is registered under South Australian legislation strongly suggests its leaders—the same frauds who led ATSIC—have learned their lesson from that episode and are avoiding scrutiny. It's not good enough. They will be held accountable for every cent of public money; I guarantee it, even if Labor will not.

No written response from Minister Burney has been remotely adequate. That is why I've said I've had no response: an inadequate response is no response at all.

On the need for a national audit on the whole $40 billion industry: well, why shouldn't we? Only 20 audits have been done since 2014—20 audits, in an industry where there's about 33 and it's been said, through the referendum, that it's up to $40 billion a year that we've spent on this Aboriginal-industry gravy-train that I've been calling out since 1996, and only 20 audits have been done. And guess what? None have been done under this government—not one. In the year and a half that you've been in here, not one audit has been done at all.

The people woke up to all this under your Voice referendum, because they'd been exposed to how much money has gone into this gravy pot, with no audits done for accountability. You should keep raising the facts about closing the gap and making changes. The money's there. You don't need to keep budgeting any more money, Labor. I keep telling you: don't put any more money there. You've got enough money. Just do the job. Put competent people in. Get rid of the bloody fraudsters. Get rid of the misappropriation of money that is happening. Then you might get some reaction.

Question agreed to.