Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank Senator Bernardi for alerting us to what can only be called an absolute rort of Labor Party proportions. The ANAO's report on the Regional Development Australia Fund, as Senator Bernardi has very clearly pointed out, shows what a pork-barrelling exercise this was. I am conscious of the fact that the coalition's regional program, when it comes out, will attract—not from the ANAO but from the Labor Party—accusations of pork-barrelling. I know that will happen. I can predict it. I have seen it before.

The Labor Party will say, 'Most of the money has gone to coalition electorates.' As I always point out, most rural and regional seats are held by the coalition, therefore, as a matter of course, most of the grants should go to coalition electorates. But did that apply under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments? The number of genuine rural and regional seats in the federal parliament held by the Labor Party was infinitesimal, so the majority of people living in rural and regional Australia who were represented by coalition members did not get what, fairly, they should have received—and the ANAO has clearly set out what fairly should have gone to those regional seats.

There were a couple of non-Labor seats that did seem to get an unusual amount of assistance from the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments. They were the seat of Lyne and Mr Windsor's seat—the seat of New England. New England and Mr Oakeshott's seat in Lyne seemed to do pretty well out of the Labor governments. One can only wonder why that was. Could it have been that they were the two members from conservative seats representing rural parts of Australia who defied their electorates and kept Ms Gillard and the Labor Party in power for three more years than should have been the case?

I join with Senator Bernardi in condemning the former Labor governments for their pork-barrelling. But forget about my condemnation and forget about Senator Bernardi's condemnation; just have a look at what the ANAO said about it. The ANAO do not always get it right, but normally they do. This is a case where they have clearly exposed the rorts that went on while Labor was in charge of the purse strings. That should be a salutary lesson to everyone.