Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

They should definitely always tell the truth, Senator Sterle, but we tell our children to play fair, to play by the rules, to abide by the umpire's ruling. That's one of the many values of sport—that children and participants learn to abide by the rules. The government weren't playing by the rules; they were actually making up their own. I think this is an important point here. The government's actions in withholding from the Senate, from the parliament and from the public information about what was really going on in relation to this corrupt sports rorts scheme—the government's determination to ignore Sport Australia, to not play by the rules and to run their own parallel process that they kept hidden from the public when allocating the money—go to show one thing about this third-term Liberal-National government, now in its seventh year: they don't want the power just to make the rules; they want the power to determine who gets to break the rules. They don't want the power just to make the rules; they want the power to determine who gets to break the rules. And it's them.