Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) Share this | Hansard source

Again, as many of us have done here in the chamber over the last week, I completely reject the characterisation by the Labor Party of the CSIG program. It was a very, very good and, quite frankly, very, very popular program. In fact, the program was so popular that Labor Party members of parliament wrote letters of endorsement for projects in their electorates, seeking for their projects to be funded. So this was a very popular program. I completely and utterly reject the characterisation that's being made by the Labor Party. It was a very popular program.

It was so popular that not one member of the opposition has offered to send the money back for the projects that were announced in their electorates where the intervention of Senator McKenzie and her decision-making processes increased the proportion of grants in Labor electorates from 26 per cent to 34 per cent, which much more closely aligned them with the number of Labor seats in the parliament. So I reject completely the characterisation of this program that is consistently put by the Labor Party.