Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Every single one of the projects that receives funding goes through a very rigorous process, and that includes the individual project that Senator O'Neill has just raised. There's a very detailed value-for-money assessment. It goes through a whole range of factors that are taken into account to ensure that these projects are value for money. Projects cannot and do not proceed to funding until they have gone through this rigorous assessment process, and that includes the project that the senator just raised.

This does raise the issue of grants more generally. Indeed, I was recently looking at some previous Labor funding programs, and I found some very interesting material. The Labor Party had a program called the community infrastructure grants program. The department's annual report in 2012 showed that Labor spent $250 million on 87 projects. Colleagues, when the department was quizzed on how money was allocated under the community infrastructure grants program at an estimates hearing in May 2011, the then secretary stated, 'Those were decisions of government and'—wait for it, colleagues—'they are not subject to a merit selection process'. The hypocrisy of the questioning from those opposite! I table the excerpt of that transcript for the benefit of the Senate. Further, an analysis of the grants reporting register for that program in August 2012 shows—colleagues, you'll be interested in this—grants to coalition seats, $30,229,250—