Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. I remind the minister that the ANAO report into the Regional Development Australia Fund found that:

A feature of the Minister's decision making was the lack of strong alignment between the funding decisions taken and the panel's recommendations …

Why is it important that projects supporting good outcomes for students be funded on the basis of merit?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Murray for her question, and I welcome her back from her sojourn in New York representing the government and the country. I can assure her that it is the case that government projects should be funded on the basis of merit, and I take, for my precedent for that, the remarks of Senator Penny Wong, who said, about the RDAF funding program:

These funding requests were assessed by an independent panel through a transparent, merits-based process, with projects measured against criteria such as value-for-money, eligibility, risk and viability.

That is what Senator Wong said about the RDAF program. Now, tragically for her, the ANAO, which has reported recently, has directly contradicted Senator Wong, and totally hung out to dry the member for Ballarat, the former minister. The ANAO report found that over a quarter of all projects—48 per cent of the total funding approved by the minister—had not been recommended for funding by the advisory council. The ANAO said:

… the Minister made 34 decisions that diverged from the recommendations of the panel …

or more than 80 per cent. As the report highlights, it is difficult to see such a result as being consistent with the competitive, merit based selection process outlined in the published program guidelines. So: the most damning ANAO report in many years, about the government program run by the member for Ballarat, the now shadow minister.

What the ANAO report found was that, in spite of the fact that the government had appointed a hand-picked panel, led by a Labor warrior in Christian Zahra, those decisions that that panel made were not biased enough for the shadow minister—they were not biased enough for the member for Ballarat—so she intervened even further, to make sure that projects that were not recommended for funding, in Labor seats, were funded, but projects that were recommended for funding, in coalition seats, were not funded.

If this Leader of the Opposition was not so weak and duplicitous as has been outlined by the Paul Kelly book, he would sack the shadow minister for health on the other side of the House—he would sack the member for Ballarat—on the basis that she is not a fit and proper person to hold office on this side of the House, if they happened to be elected at the next election. But the Leader of the Opposition will not do that. He will not do that, because he has been exposed as weak. He has been exposed as being on both sides of the argument, wherever he is, whether it is in the caucus, in the Labor Party, or in politics. He is weak, he is duplicitous and he cannot be trusted.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the member for Isaacs—he will resume his seat—I understand that the booklet that was given in to the attendants earlier has been redistributed. I understand that that is with the intention that there shall be a flouting of my ruling earlier, to use it again. Should that be the case I will be forced to name the person I think is responsible.