Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I issue a general withdrawal to satisfy the member for Forde, for whatever it related to. You can tell me later. I'm not withdrawing the accusation of rorting, because that's what the evidence said, and I'm reading directly from the report's findings, Member for Forde.

We also say that funding approvals against agency recommendations must be clearly recorded, reported promptly to the Minister for Finance and published online within three months.

This change is greatly upsetting to the National Party: the committee has recommended that decision-makers should no longer be able to just choose their favourite projects from a great big pool of recommendations. This was the favourite trick of the National Party. They'd get a great big list from the department, and it would show all the projects that were eligible. There might be $4 billion of projects and $400 million of funding, and then the minister would just pick. Under the current rules, that's not rejecting a funding recommendation, so we think that needs to change. There are very limited circumstances where that would be acceptable. Other factors by which grants will be assessed should be fully transparent and appropriately evaluated and scored. They had a trick later in their time in office where they started adding in these 'other factors', which was their way of trying to legitimise the secret, coloured spreadsheets. We also say that the onus should be reversed and that the rules should apply to all corporate Commonwealth entities unless exceptions are made. There are a range of findings in relation to the grants hubs.

It's disappointing that the bipartisan tradition of the audit committee has been breached on this occasion, as these recommendations and findings should receive bipartisan support because they're based on compelling evidence. As I said, in their dissenting report they didn't disagree with the recs; they just didn't like the evidence that called them out. Given the denial that they're still in, it's not surprising. Hopefully the implementation, if the government takes it up, of the committee's recommendations will make a material difference to grants administration and contribute to rebuilding public trust.

I thank the numerous contributors to the inquiry. I thank the committee secretariat—I see the committee secretary over there, Jenny Adams, who's doing an absolutely sterling job managing our numerous inquiries—for their professionalism in supporting the work of the committee.

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

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