Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I am very disappointed to inform the Senate that, unfortunately, colleagues, I can't. I can't outline the tender process for this particular grant, nor, Senator Bushby, in response to your question, can I outline the safeguards which were put in place to ensure value for taxpayers' money, because they do not exist. I can inform you that the grant was also given to the ACTU so they could 'inform and educate their membership about productivity and identify initiatives that promote productivity growth'.

Given that the union movement does everything it can to fight against productivity growth in this country, one might say that this is a key outcome which they have not met. Colleagues, it gets worse, because there was no provision in this contract for any future coalition government to take back or recoup the money on behalf of taxpayers, if it was not spent in accordance with the grant. (Time expired)