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

That is going to be a quick answer, because there was no benefit that I can see to the Australian taxpayer. Given it was an $11 million grant to the ACTU, I can see that there was a direct benefit to the ACTU. But what's worse is that there was potentially a benefit to Mr Shorten. Just a year after giving this money over to the unions, he was seeking their support to become the leader of the Australian Labor Party and, on top of that, the ACTU did support him. What the ACTU is now doing with this money remains a mystery, because the bulk of the money remains unspent for the purposes it was intended. Yet again, what does this show? Mr Shorten, if he was ever given the keys to this place, could never be trusted to appropriately spend taxpayers' money.