Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Pocock. I understand that, in terms of previous requests for funding from this organisation, two of the three items that they requested funding for were approved. Without in any way attributing blame here, the decisions as to how funds should be expended previously and which organisations should receive those funds were made at arm's length from government. Our role was to provide the funding and set up a process for those decisions to be made independently. There were no doubt good reasons for the decisions that were made previously about which elements of that funding were approved and which ones were not. But we understand the very genuine request that has been made by the organisation, supported by you and supported by Senator Gallagher, and we'll no doubt have more to say about that before too long.