Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, I will not give them any more touch-ups. You, Mr Acting Deputy President, also know that in a number of these places—like with Mr Schultz—no applications were received. As the report said, there was significant ministerial intervention. In fact, the department declined to recommend some of these rorts. It said that they did not follow the relevant guidelines and that they were almost exclusively in marginal coalition seats. For those that are not aware of it, ‘marginal seats’ are defined as those with margins of anything under five per cent. Most of these rorts were given to the seats where there was less than five per cent in them—and it did not do them any good. You had Mr Bartlett, indeed, who had access to a number of these schemes. In fact, even Jackie Kelly—it seems Kellys have problems with propriety!—was dipping into the pork barrel, and I may get a chance to talk about Jackie on another occasion.

One of the other significant comments that was made with regard to this program was in relation to Beef Australia. You may well be aware of Beef Australia, Senator Ian Macdonald, because it comes from up near your region. The Commonwealth contributed $2.2 million to the beef expo in Rockhampton. The funding was approved before documentation was provided to the department. The departmental assessment was later undertaken in only six days. There was no regional office assessment and a number of the partners in the project were not identified on the application. Surely you cannot be proud of this sort of activity and scrutiny by the party that was in government at that period.