Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I want to ask the minister about the underspends in the Regional Partnerships program and in the Sustainable Regions Program. The Sustainable Regions Program, I suppose, is the more glaring because there is a $15.5 million underspend in that program and it is due to run out in 2008. Not only is there that $15.5 million underspend, there is a $9.625 million underspend in the Regional Partnerships program. I find this intriguing and I ask the minister to enlighten us.

Recently there was a gathering of the area consultative committee chairs in Canberra. I sought from the minister an opportunity to address the chairs, given that there is bipartisan support in this parliament—in fact, it was under me that they were established back in 1994-95. I thought this would have been an easy option to have responded to, but the minister refused. I offered to meet them separately and met more than half of them over the course of three days, but they tell me that their two major complaints are, in essence: firstly, that they are getting fed up with the inordinate amount of time it is taking the government to approve proposals; and, secondly, that their recommendations are not always taken into account. How is it that we can have the underspend on the one hand but complaints from the bodies charged with having to make recommendations to the government about the inordinate amount of time? That is the general question.

The specific question goes to the fact that, given this underspend—some $25 million has been rolled over into the next financial year—I know that this is now going to become a massive war chest for the government to use to make announcements just before the election. I therefore want to know why the government has not adopted the recommendations of this parliament for greater transparency in the way in which these funds are administered. With regard to one particular recommendation, why does one of your ministers, Senator Johnston, still say that SONA, the Strategic Opportunities Notional Allocations program—the under-the-radar scheme that ministers use to get themselves out of trouble just before an election—is still going to be available? It was clearly a recommendation of the Senate that that program be abolished.

Whilst we are on SONA, Minister, what is the status is of the Primary Energy Gunnedah grains to ethanol project? The reason I ask is that this was a project approved under the SONA guidelines. I remind you that this is a $1 million grant to the company that has not yet produced a litre of ethanol. I ask the minister why milestone 4 under that program has not yet been met. I also ask the minister if he is aware that the chair of the area consultative committee at the time this grant was awarded and a key project supported was Kevin Humphries, who is now the member for Barwon. Is the minister also aware that Kevin Humphries went into business with the proponent of that $1 million grant, Matthew Kelly, in July last year, in a venture called Mack fuels, to build another ethanol plant and that he still owns shares in that company? Is this what the Regional Partnerships program and the Sustainable Regions Program are all about, Minister? When are we going to get real transparency built into these programs?

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