Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Colbeck is quite wrong. The whole point of this inquiry is to look at how it is possible that the department, the advisory committee and the decision maker actually signed off on Commonwealth money leaving when people who applied had not been eligible and when people who got zero on a merit score between zero and 100 got grants. It is to look at how it is possible that these things happen. This has been one of my major campaigns for a long time, and I went over that original audit report for hundreds of questions. The issue is: why has the department mismanaged these grants? That is what I hope to get to the bottom of, as to how these decisions have been able to be made. In fact, it is supported by the contractors in Tasmania—they want the same answers.