Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021. It's pretty tough to start a speech by saying: 'This bill will clean up some of the corruption and rorting of taxpayer dollars that's become endemic under the current Liberal-National government'—because the only thing that's really going to fix it is getting rid of the government. This is only going to attempt to clean up some of the mess and address some of the disgraceful behaviours that we've seen commonly done—just as part of business as usual, according to this government. I'm talking about what people know as 'sports rorts', about the Building Better Regions Fund, about the National Commuter Car Park Fund—and the list just goes on and on and on. We need to ensure that we as a house of review oppose this spending by the government of billions of taxpayer dollars as if it's their own Liberal-National party campaign money.

The Commuter Car Park Fund is just one small example of incredibly poor governance and cynical politics, even for the Morrison government. This failed fund has built only three of the car parks that it promised before the last election—three car parks in three years!—and the government have cancelled six car parks, double the number that they've built, because they have shown an inability to plan properly. And there are 47 other car parks that are unlikely to ever be built. With all the resources of government, with access to the entire capacity of the government of Australia, they couldn't get the plan right, and in three years they've built three car parks. It's a disgrace. It's a disaster of a project, and it was caused purely by the political greed of those opposite. A planning process was absent, and the project was based on an electoral timeline, with no due diligence. This scheme is exactly what happens when the Liberal and National parties decide to use your Australian taxpayer dollars as their personal re-election fund. They did it in 2019, and they're lining up for a replay in 2022. On the Central Coast, where I live—represented in the southern end by Lucy Wicks, the member for Robertson—it's been an utterly failed and hapless and haphazard planning project. The local member failed Robertson when she did nothing for eight years—no planning, despite handing out at the station as commuters headed to Sydney. Then she rushed a completely unsatisfactory process that's gone nowhere because it was always going to go nowhere. This was about an announcement and not about the actual delivery of vital infrastructure for coasties.

This bill before us today aims to stop rorts such as the grossly mismanaged commuter car park rorting fund. It's intended to halt local members and their Liberal and National Party leadership from funnelling money into dodgy projects with incomplete data and from making commitments and announcements as if they're going to happen but which never actually translate into reality in people's lives. Another one was sports rorts—it wasn't an isolated incident; it was evidence of an endemic culture of rorting and corruption. The Community Sport Infrastructure Program was a $100 million taxpayer funded coalition slush fund to save their political future. They didn't spend it appropriately and with care. They spent it to get themselves elected. A scathing ANAO report found that it was afflicted by severe distribution bias and that in the last round of funding 70 per cent of the department's suggestions were overruled in place of electorates picked out on a spreadsheet colour coded to let the Liberal and National Party members and candidates make announcements that were likely to increase their votes and get them elected. The ANAO even found that this project may have been illegal. I see Minister Reynolds is here still trying to cover up robodebt. We've seen them do illegal things where they actually had to pay back money to Australians. The ANAO said it was not evident to them what the legal authority was for them to roll out this $100 million worth of sports rorts money.

Shocking as that is, it's just the tip of the iceberg with this lot. They really have a born-to-rule mentality and they really think that every taxpayer dollar that comes into this place is there for their personal discretion—not to build the nation. God forbid that we should lift our eyes, look to the future and advance everyone. No, this is about personal victories, personal interest and power for the Liberal Party over good governance for the Australian people. That's why we should kick that lot out at the next election. They do not deserve people's votes, not on the back of what they've done. Public governance and accountability are the basics for a government. These guys do not know what that means.

The Liberals and Nationals are happy to splash taxpayer cash wherever they see their own political interest but rarely where the public interest needs to be served. We've seen that with JobMaker, a much lauded $4 billion plan that delivered just one per cent of the jobs that were announced—the jobs that were promised. That happened because the government rushed it. It was poorly designed. They don't care. They got the headline with the number four billion—they'll use it in a lovely glossy blue brochure in your letterbox. But those brochures that this government will put out are based on a litany of lies and deceptions.

With the Building Better Regions Fund—I have to laugh when I say it, because it's a joke the way that they corrupted this one. I know what it means to come from a regional part of New South Wales. I'm just over 100 kilometres out of Sydney, but it's another world. When you get to the other side of the Great Dividing Range in places like Cobar, Coonabarabran, Broken Hill, Wilcannia and the seat of Farrer, it's a whole different world. That's regional. This government don't seem to understand that, even though they purport to represent it. Under this government, your taxpayer dollars are wasted by incompetence and a failure to design proper infrastructure projects, or they are corrupted by a government that wants to save hapless, non-working MPs who just roll up when an election comes around, confident that they're going to get the vote from the National Party members out there in the bush. They just show up for elections, and the people in the community are not getting their fair share.

The Building Better Regions Fund managed over $105 million in grants to regional communities across Australia—at least, that's how it was described—yet there was a secret ministerial planning instrument that managed those grants. It saw over half of the funds, more than $50 million worth, awarded to projects that were ranked far lower than many much more worthy, higher-ranked applications—as assessed by people who are building for the nation, who are professionals in government who understand getting value for your dollar.

I come from a small-business family. Like many of my colleagues, I know small businesses are the heart of this country; that is where jobs are created. Entrepreneurship requires people to do their jobs brilliantly, with due diligence and to spend resources in wise ways. This government would not know what wisdom looks like when it comes to spending a buck. The only 'wisdom' they have is a self-inflated sense of their right to government and their willingness to corrupt the processes of government to fund what they want for their own personal advantage over the advantage of regional communities, and I am sick of it. I am sick of it people from the regions of this country being dudded by their own government: being given announcements but getting no swimming pool; getting no funding for roads they know they need to be fixed; getting no investment in infrastructure that will improve their local economies. Overwhelmingly, these poorly ranked grants went to Liberal and National electorates at a rate that would have been deemed completely inappropriate if the proper scrutiny had been applied.

It is as simple as this: a swimming pool in North Sydney that was funded out of this pool of money is being dressed up by this government as a regional infrastructure project. That is how cynical they are, and that is how stupid they think the Australian people are. They think they can pull the wool over our eyes. They tell you they are supporting the regions and then put money into the pool at North Sydney. What a con from the ad man, Mr Morrison, and his whole team of minions, who line up behind him and continue in the same way. There is no program that those opposite will fail to rort. It doesn't matter what the experts say, it doesn't matter what the departments say, it doesn't matter what the community says; they only want to do what gets them re-elected, and that is way too low a bar to set.

The Australian National Audit Office was absolutely scathing about the car park rorts. It found that car parks were heavily centred in Liberal electorates, particularly in Victoria. The government was clearly trying to save its seats down there. Mr Frydenberg must have thought he was under incredible threat because he got four of the car parks. The reality is that, as the department put on the record, most of the congested roads in Australia are found in Sydney. I will stand up every day for my state, but I will stand up with integrity and fairness. If money needs to go to another state to advance this nation, then that is where should go—when a scheme is appropriately designed. You cannot just look after your own at the expense of the rest. That is unethical behaviour, but that is the playbook of this government—unethical behaviour—and that is why we need this piece of legislation to rein it in. We cannot contain it; it is endemic and out of control. This piece of legislation, the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill, is merely a reining in of the most egregious practices of this government.

The government don't support a federal national integrity commission. Is it any wonder? They probably won't back this bill, because they don't want any containment on what they've found as their political survival strategy. Their political power is based on the rorting, the corrupt use, the inappropriate use, the poorly designed use of the public funds that are Australian taxpayers' dollars, dollars which should be used so judiciously to advance the nation, not the Liberal-National government. The kind of behaviour I'm describing here has to be described. It has to be called out for what it is. It takes a lot of work from opposition to get the facts from this secretive government that wants to hide the truth from Australians. I don't like having to make this speech, because it erodes public trust and public confidence in the rectitude and effectiveness of the government, but I'm putting it on the record now because, pretty soon, Australians are going to have the chance to vote, and I'm calling on Australians when they vote to recognise the shameful behaviour, the disgraceful, corrupt behaviour of this government in its industrial-scale rorting of taxpayer money to the benefit of its own political interests and not those of Australians.

With this government it is all about politics and division and themselves. It's not about Australians. It's not about our future. It's not about Australia's benefit. It's about their personal benefit. That is not satisfactory. Heartless political arithmetic benefits only those in power, not those on the ground. Because of rushed political announcements without any due diligence, the Central Coast is further away from getting a car park than ever. But all that was needed was for Mrs Lucy Wicks to stand up with Mr Morrison and make an announcement to shore up a majority. You won't get away with it twice, Lucy Wicks. You've lied to the Australian people on the Central Coast for long enough. It's over, and this legislation is there to help.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, that should be withdrawn.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Neill, would you like to consider the comments that you just made and respond to the minister.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will withdraw, even though it's true.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Neill, if you are going to withdraw the comments, it needs to be done without any condition.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. I just hope she can tell the truth.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, the senator is flouting your ruling and your advice.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator O'Neill.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021, a bill introduced by Senator Gallagher. I rise first to dispel the myth that saw the genesis of this bill, that there is some kind of lack of reporting or lack of transparency around grants and the grants decision-making process. I'm sure that we will hear, as we've already heard this morning, myriad examples from those opposite of what they deem to be scandalous conduct, but the fact is that, if there was no transparency around grants reporting, they would have no idea that there had been any occurrence of them. The very examples raised here are evidence of the significant level of transparency that this government undertakes and is very happy to undertake. We on this side of the Senate firmly believe that Australian taxpayers deserve to know where their money is being spent and on what. We have no problem with transparency. If those opposite were truly in favour of transparency and accountability, then they would subject their mates in the union movement to a much higher standard in those areas, but we certainly don't see much example of that happening there.

There are already four levels of reporting relating to grants. Senator Gallagher's bill simply adds a fifth with significant overlap and duplication. This bill adds new terminology. Further bureaucracy and regulation may not be of any consequence for the Labor Party—we know this—but it's my preference and it's the preference of this government that we do not add any significant duplication and overlap.

Avoiding this, where possible, always has to be the aim, and it's the aim of this government. It's also the preference of grant applicants, who want a streamlined and simplified process. In my previous career and work I was involved in submitting grant applications, and it's an extraordinary process that you have to go through. That's necessary; it's understood. But we don't need to add to the red tape or the burden that's required. I know that many organisations simply end up grant writing to grant write, because there's so much required in being awarded grants. We don't need to add any further complication to it. Of course we need accountability and transparency, and there are good reasons for that. It's because it's taxpayers' money, and taxpayers expect there to be transparency and proper oversight.

The most wide-ranging and obvious of these accountability measures that the government has put in place is the GrantConnect website. This was put in place in 2017, when the government mandated a requirement to report all grants on the GrantConnect website. This is a fantastic website. It provides whole-of-government consolidated data on grant opportunities and grants that have been awarded. The GrantConnect website captures information on grant recipients, their location and the value of grant decisions. In this way, it acts as a very open and accountable record. The website also includes grant guidelines for each grant program, allowing people to look up who the decision-maker is for the grant program and therefore identify which grants are decided by which minister. This increases the accessibility of the general public to the decision-makers in the process.

The website not only shows grants awarded previously but also grant rounds currently open and upcoming grant grounds. This enables community organisations to plan and get their ideas together for future grant applications. I know that a number of community organisations find this website very useful, and I've been fortunate enough to visit a number of organisations who have received grants. People can not only search by key terms but can also export large datasets to find programs or decisions of interest. The GrantConnect website can notify registered users of grant opportunities as they arise. You can put in key search terms and you'll get notified as these opportunities come up.

Further to the GrantConnect website, reportable grants are also required variously to be reported to the finance minister under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rules and the Commonwealth Grants Rule and Guidelines. They are also required to be reported to parliament under the Senate orders of continuing effect. Senator Gallagher's bill would add a fifth level of required reporting, a wholly unnecessary level in my opinion.

Further to this, the other furphy which continues to be propagated here is that if a minister disagrees with or overrules advice by the departmental staff then there must be some kind of conspiracy going on. The Labor Party are so caught up with the temerity of a minister apparently defying their department that Senator Gallagher has drafted a bill to deal with it—that is, this bill. I must have missed the memo stating that ministers are no longer in charge of their departments and that the departments are now in charge of their ministers. I must have missed that memo, but the Labor Party seem to have got that and that's why they've written this bill. Indeed, I believe that Labor would prefer this. On this side, we're very happy about, and we welcome, ministers exercising their right to overrule advice that they don't agree with. Ministers have a far greater opportunity than officials do to consult extensively with communities, NGOs, industries and other stakeholders. They travel extensively around the country and hear frequently from constituents, including from those referred by parliamentary colleagues. Ministers are uniquely positioned as grant decision-makers because they have a very broad understanding of community needs. This is what ministers are appointed to do: to consult, to deliberate and to decide.

Of course, the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines state that where ministers are deciding grant outcomes they must consider official advice. But ministers are not rubber stampers, and they are, of course, obliged to use their own judgement—at least, that's what we believe on this side of the chamber. If those opposite want to pretend that they're ready to form some kind of alternative government, they should realise that the role of a minister is to lead, not to be led. It is inevitable, on occasion, that a minister may take a different view from those of officials. Ministers are elected. At the end of the day, they have the capacity to make these decisions—and so they should—but ministers are always required, in the first instance, to receive and consider official advice. This is in the guidelines, it's very clear, and it's what must always be followed and is followed by this government.

Let's look at the recent grant round of the Building Better Regions Fund. I've seen firsthand how this has benefited communities: the new taxiway at the Kununurra airport, for example, where I've landed on numerous occasions, or the newly announced Tom Price Skate Park. I was in Tom Price last year, and it's a fantastic town. Many people are choosing to raise their families there. My young son loves a skate park and kids up in Tom Price should have a skate park just as much as those in the suburbs of Perth. This is a town that desperately needs more facilities for young people.

This is a fantastic grants program. It's providing funding to a wide range of organisations, strengthening and diversifying regional economies and helping to provide facilities to remote communities. Of course, predictably, after the results of the latest round of the Building Better Regions Fund were announced, we saw headlines from those opposite, claiming that 90 per cent of building better regions funding went to coalition seats. The forced outrage was palpable. Ms Catherine King MP labelled it a scandal: the supposed shadow minister for infrastructure, transport and regional development labelled it a scandal. Let's look at this. Let's look past the spin. Perhaps that funding breakdown could be explained by the fact that Labor barely holds a seat outside the inner city. This is, after all, the Building Better Regions Fund, not the 'Cappuccino Strip Improvement Project'—the CSIP. Is it any great surprise that, as Labor have deserted the regions, regional voters have deserted them?

At this point, I will add that it's a great shame that the Labor Party is losing Mr Fitzgibbon, the member for Hunter. Mr Fitzgibbon has been a true voice of the Labor Party for regional jobs and regional development—probably the last one they have left. But he's going. It's little wonder then that after the last election the vast majority of regional seats were held by Liberal or National party members. So, of course, if you're running a regional grants program, 90 per cent of those grants will go into those seats. It's because the Liberal and National parties hold those seats.

Neither I nor the government shy away from transparency in awarding and reporting grants. In fact, our current regime actually contains a more rigorous reporting standard than that suggested by Senator Gallagher's bill in relation to the grants that a minister awards in their own electorate. The current grants standard requires that when such a grant is awarded it is to be reported to the finance minister as soon as practicable. Senator Gallagher's bill pushes that requirement out to 30 days, but, after that 30-day period, the finance minister would be required to table the report in the parliament within five sitting days of receiving it. This is bizarrely inconsistent, I have to say.

This bill is commendable in its intention, I'll grant them that. Transparency is not something that should be shied away from, but the bill fails to take into account all the other transparency arrangements currently in place. This bill seems to be drafted as if they were the first movers in this space, but that's simply not true. It duplicates, it creates inconsistency, it requires reporting of incorrect information and it requires some information to be reported later than it is today, so it doesn't do anything to add to the level of transparency that the Australian taxpayers would expect of a government. This bill just complicates it. Why is this the case? Because it's just a stunt. It's just another one of these stunts to claim a headline and to create a bit of noise and attention to detract from the fact that they really have no other plan, other than to create smear and divert from the fact that they really are not in a place to be the alternative government.

The bill duplicates, it creates inconsistency and it requires reporting of incorrect information. This is not necessary. While apparently attempting to increase transparency, Senator Gallagher's bill actually lessens it to some extent in some areas, either by design or by oversight. This is not good enough. This bill is not well considered; it's seriously flawed. Further, it highlights the Australian Labor Party's nervousness around ministerial decisions and their preference for government by unelected officials, with those officials being solely the ones making decisions. Is that what we can expect, should the Labor Party form government after the next election? Are they just going to be led by their departments, and ministers won't be the ones actually making the decisions? It's the ministers who are ultimately accountable to the Australian people. They're the ones who have been elected. They're the ones who will be fronting up in their communities, facing the media and dealing with scrutiny in this chamber and the other chamber. It's their work that will be scrutinised, not the work of the officials. We have excellent officials. Australia is well supported by wonderful members of the Public Service who are of a high calibre and work to a high standard—arguably, they're some of the best in the world. But, at the end of the day, they're not elected; they're appointed. They've been given an important job to do, but it's the members of the House of Representatives and of this house who become ministers who are ultimately responsible.

This is just an example of why the Australian people have trusted, and will continue to trust, the Morrison government to lead Australia. We're prepared to make decisions, we're prepared to stand up, and we're prepared to take those decisions to the Australian people and be accountable for them, because we're an adult government. That's how the Australian people know that they can continue to trust us. We look forward to prosecuting that case over the next six months or so as we lead into the next election.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to strongly support the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021, and I commend Senator Gallagher for her work in holding the government to account in this outrageous rorting of public funds for political gain. Having recently arrived in the Senate, I've been shocked at the lack of transparency and accountability of the Morrison-Joyce government. It isn't just that transparency isn't a priority for them; they are actively seeking to hide documents and shield their decisions from the public's view. So I support this bill as a step to hold the government to account and to get some accountability even where the current government doesn't want it.

As other speakers have highlighted, this bill amends the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act to bring together the grant rules and guidelines currently found in other legislation and to tighten the time frames around these requirements. It's probably worth referring here to Senator O'Sullivan's commentary about the timing. The current requirements are that it's 12 months before grants need to be reported, and that's one of the key things that this bill seeks to change—to bring that forward, so we're not waiting 12 months for that level of accountability and transparency. Specifically, this bill would require the finance minister to report to the parliament when ministers have approved projects against the advice of their departments or within their own electorates, and it would require this to happen in a much tighter time frame.

Grants are a critically important part of how a national government works, and it is important that the public can see exactly what is happening here and exactly where the money is going. So many community groups and sporting clubs rely on this type of funding to be able to keep their operations going or to fund much-needed infrastructure upgrades. I know that a great many South Australians will know of local sporting clubs that desperately need upgrades. They need a new pitch, better lighting, change rooms or other facilities to help their clubs thrive. The grants are vital for the larger-scale projects too, whether it's funding for research projects or for significant infrastructure works, like new roads, bridges, public transport and other required infrastructure. But, at the end of the day, these grants are taxpayer funded. People rightly expect that the government will spend public funds in a way that is transparent and accountable to them.

There are worthy and much-needed projects in just about every single corner of the country, and we accept that not every good project can be funded at the same time. But we need to be transparent and we need to understand what the evidence base is for each and every grant: What are the most urgent projects? What is the best bang? How are we funding these things? What is the rationale? The system should work in that manner—it should be accountable and transparent, and people in communities should be able to see that. But, under eight long years of this Liberal-National government, that is not what we are seeing. The Morrison-Joyce government continues to treat taxpayer funded grants like this as if they were part of a Liberal Party campaign account, splashing money on political priorities, not based on evidence and real community need. To counter another point that Senator O'Sullivan made: as for the particular grants that he was talking about, 34 per cent of those seats that were eligible do not sit within the LNP. That's 34 per cent—I hardly think that's negligible—and, of those seats, only 14 per cent received grants. That shows us very, very clearly how political these decisions are. The worst thing about this is that, when they are called out on it, the government just keep trying to hide the documents and the evidence from public view. They hide from any form of scrutiny and deflect any form of attention. That's exactly what this bill is trying to address and it's exactly why it's so badly needed.

One of the most outrageous examples that we have seen was the notorious sports rorts. This wasn't just a case of public funds being rorted. It actually had real consequences for the people and the communities across this country. We felt it keenly in South Australia. As a result of the $100 million sports rorts, worthy clubs across South Australia—clubs run by dedicated community members, like mums, dads, aunts, uncles, grannies and grandads, people who work very hard to make their local clubs as successful as they can be to give everyone an opportunity to participate in these important community activities—have been denied basic upgrades simply because they are not fortunate enough to be located in a Liberal target seat or a Liberal held seat.

In South Australia we've seen some amazing things occur, and I don't mean that in a good sense. We've seen the spectacle of failed candidate for Mayo Georgina Downer parading around Yankalilla with novelty cheques advertising the rorts. It's exceptional. It's unbelievable. Of the top 50 unsuccessful applicants nationwide, 12 were South Australian projects, and seven of those were in the top 15. These had all scored above 88 out of 100 in the Australian sports independent merit assessment process. However, all 12 of these deserving clubs were rejected by the Morrison government so that it could instead spend the taxpayer money pork-barrelling marginal seats in other states. Clubs with a huge demand for infrastructure, like the South Adelaide Football Club—home to back-to-back SANFLW premiers and also a highly successful SANFL side—missed out completely. Meanwhile, the Old Collegians Rugby Union Football Club, in the Liberal seat of Sturt, was awarded $500,000 for female change rooms, despite not having any female programs. They have no girls' or women's teams. McLaren Football Club, which scored 88 out of 100 on the Sport Australia merit criteria, was yet another club that missed out even though it exceeded those criteria. The club president at the time, Darren Lines, called on the PM to go and visit the club, speak to the women who needed these change facilities and explain to them why the merit system was totally ignored. The PM never turned up and never answered that question.

This was, simply, an outrageous slap in the face to local sporting communities that had worked so hard week in and week out to get their kids out in the field, on the court or on the track, and it didn't take long for the South Australia Liberal government to catch on. Fresh on the heels of Senator McKenzie's largesse to the Liberal marginal seats, we saw South Australian Liberals endow some of the exact same clubs with more funding—more rounds of sport rorts—just joining in. Of the Marshall Liberal government's Grassroots Football, Cricket and Netball Facility Program, just six out of 47 of the electorates that received money were Labor electorates. In June this year, just 22 out of 117 clubs to receive funding under three revised sports infrastructure funding streams were located in Labor electorates. Then, to stick the boot in further, the additional condition that has been brought in is one that totally slams any low-socioeconomic areas by now requiring a 50 per cent contribution, ensuring that only those clubs with more money, in more wealthy areas, actually have a chance to develop their sporting clubs.

But we know it's not just sports and it's not just those funds that have been rorted by the Morrison-Joyce government. Just last month we learnt about the mass rorting of the Building Better Regions Fund for much-needed projects in regional Australia. This $1.5 billion bucket of money has been there since 2018. It is money that was supposed to be spent on 'investment ready projects that provide economic and social benefits for regional and remote areas'—that's a direct quote. The Australian National Audit Office—not anyone else—has found that 55 per cent of these regional grants announced since 2018 have gone to projects in major cities. Let that sink in: 55 per cent of regional grants have gone to major cities. That's millions of dollars for projects in regions that are screaming out for support that has just been put across to the cities. Analysis has shown that some 90 per cent of the funds granted have gone to coalition-held or coalition-targeted seats. What is particularly galling about that regional money is the $10 million that went to a swimming pool in North Sydney that is right next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. That is not regional by anyone's assessment. The claim that it's regional because some people from the country go and swim there is absolutely ridiculous.

Yet again, this government and this Prime Minister are using taxpayer funds like they're part of a Liberal Party campaign account. So, if you happen to live in a Labor seat that the coalition does not have it's eye on, tough luck! You are not going to get anything, regardless of need, and that is shameful. That is exactly what this bill seeks to stop. It's obvious for all of us to see that decisions are being made for political purposes, but still the Morrison-Joyce government does the same thing it always does—dig in, avoid responsibility, avoid any transparency and refuse to answer the questions of the Australian public. Something needs to change, and it's those people in regional and remote communities who are missing out most of all here. They're losing their chance of upgrades for their towns because of the Prime Minister's political objectives. I sincerely hope that, when the Australian National Audit Office releases its report into this issue next year, it is able to provide that transparency. There's a clear contrast here. Labor is on the side of those people in regional Australia and on the side of transparency and accountability. This bill is part of that. There may be a good reason for a minister to go against departmental advice or to fund a project in their own seat, but they should be upfront about that. They should be clear and transparent about the exact rationale for why it is happening. And they shouldn't be delaying or obfuscating. It should be timely.

But there is more work to do as well and we need to consider the steps beyond this bill. The legacy of this government's rorts and grants scandals has been an erosion in public confidence in government and government decision-making. The important work that grants can and should do is being totally undermined. A strong national anticorruption commission would be a powerful tool to restore public trust and hold government decision-makers to account. The government committed to this before the last election but has still been completely silent on it. Labor will deliver a strong, independent, transparent, national anticorruption commission and it is time for this government to do the same or just own up to the fact that they are not going to bother.

In closing, I reiterate my strong support for this bill; my strong support for accountability, transparency, trust in government decision-making and a fair go for the regions of this country and for all the community and sporting facilities in this country, not just the chosen few. What we've outlined are practical measures to bring transparency to the decisions on government grants—transparency that is currently sorely lacking. I urge all senators not just to support this bill but to continue the work of restoring trust in government and in government decision-making.

Ben Small (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join my fellow colleague from Western Australia Senator O'Sullivan in rising today to argue against the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021. The reason is not, as those on the other side of the chamber would have you believe, that this is a government committed to anything other than transparency in decision-making, and indeed accountability, to the people of Australia who send us here but rather that there are five key flaws in this particular bill which seek to undermine its intent, complicate decision-making and indeed do nothing to further the cause of transparency within government. If we take this in turn, in terms of transparency in grant-making decisions by ministers of the Crown, Senator Gallagher's bill would significantly increase duplication in existing reporting arrangements, not only creating a second but rather a fifth set of reporting rules that complicate reporting that already exists under four other separate and distinct sets of rules.

To Senator O'Sullivan's point: a lot of the hot air that we hear out of those opposite on this is, in fact, only caused by the transparency that's upheld by those reporting arrangements. Currently the grants that are awarded under ministerial discretion either contrary to official advice that they be rejected or relating to projects in the minister's own electorate are already disclosed to the finance minister. For corporate Commonwealth entities this is required under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability rules. For non-corporate Commonwealth entities this is required under the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines. There are many good reasons, some of which even Senator Grogan touched on, that would require a minister to take a decision that isn't in line with official advice, and we'll get to those a little later. However, on this point that grant information is already transparent, grant information is also disclosable to the parliament under Senate Procedural Orders of Continuing Effect Nos 16 and 23E. Order 23E covers most grants reported to the finance minister under those circumstances I just touched on. Order 16 covers all grants.

Transparency is, ultimately, achieved in our democracy through periodic reporting to this parliament, and transparency is achieved more directly and faster through online reporting to the wider public. This is what's been happening for years. In 2017, the government mandated the requirement to report all grants on the GrantConnect website, located at www.grants.gov.au, which provides whole-of-government consolidated data on grant opportunities and those grants that were awarded. Grants are uploaded to this site regularly throughout the year, after the grant agreements are signed between parties. So we have a GrantConnect website that captures information on grant recipients, their location and the value of those decisions.

It includes the grant guidelines for each of the grant programs under which those same grants are made, thereby allowing every person in Australia to look up who the decision-maker is for the grant program and, therefore, identify which grants are decided by which minister. The website not only shows previous grants awarded but also those grant rounds that are currently open and upcoming grant rounds that enable community organisations to plan for future grant applications.

This bill deals with just one set of grants, those that are awarded based on ministerial discretion or ministerial decision against advice. Governments—on both sides of politics—have always considered it appropriate to use ministers as decision-makers in certain circumstances, because the reality is that ministers have greater opportunities than those public servants and bureaucrats based here in Canberra to consult widely with the people of Australia, to engage with stakeholders and industries, particularly in rural and remote parts of our country. They travel extensively around the country and hear from these people directly.

Ronald Reagan said it best: the nine most terrifying words in the English language can be, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' Having ministers of the Crown, of the democratically elected government of the day, travel our country and hear directly from the horse's mouth on these important issues and take up the decision against official advice is recognised by both sides of politics as an important part of our democracy.

That said, the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines require a minister to consider, when making a decision on a grant, that same official advice. Official advice from a department is not simply a rubber stamp. Ministers are obliged to use their own judgement, and sometimes that means they form a different view from that of our officials. Ministers are always required, though, in that very first instance, to receive and consider the official advice and the very good reasons that the hardworking public servants here in Australia provide that same advice.

There are five key areas of defect within this bill. Firstly, there is inconsistent treatment of different government agencies. On the face of it, this makes absolutely no sense to me, because the bill proposes to introduce a new term, a 'reportable grant', which covers most grants currently reported to the finance minister by ministers in respect of the 98 non-corporate Commonwealth entities. The bill does not cover any of the grants administered but 71 corporate Commonwealth entities.

I just touched on the two very different sets of circumstances in which these decisions are reported to the finance minister and the parliament. This is a bizarre oversight. The bill is oblivious to the fact that there are separate requirements in the PGPA regulations that cover those 71 corporate Commonwealth entities as distinct from the 98 non-corporate entities. So that will cause a divergence in the current approach, which is aligned and uniform, requiring the treatment of grants administered by both corporate and non-corporate agencies to be reported. That alignment was cemented in regulations on 17 July 2020—regulations that Senator Gallagher appears perhaps to have missed in bringing this legislation forward despite the fact that she was shadow finance minister at the time. This bill would take those requirements from a position of uniformity to a position of inconsistency.

The bill also places details in the PGPA Act covering practices that have until now sat within delegated legislation. It would require agency officials to delegate and depart from following a consolidated set of rules and guidelines, providing a single point of reference that exists today in the Commonwealth rules and guidelines, to expecting them to follow scattering rules that are separated between primary and delegated law. That inevitably increases the risk of inadvertent rule breach by officials within the Australian government structure and makes for ultimate confusion in the administration of our laws—procedural information being appropriately in the regulations with key principles sitting within the primary legislation that informs it. The bill cuts that longstanding practice for procedural requirement around a grant application that has allowed officials within the Australian government structure to operate from a position of uniformity.

There's duplication within the bill, requiring ministers who approve grants to provide reports to the finance minister within 30 days of their approval, relating to three key areas of grant decisions. However, the third category, which is that those did not meet any relevant selection criteria in 1 and 2, are completely overlapped by the first category, which are those grant decisions that the government department recommended against, so everything in category 3 would also have to be reported in category 1. If a grant application doesn't meet the selection criteria or falls short in some way, a departmental official will, of course, recommend against it. Therefore, the grant would be reportable under category 1, just as it is now reportable under the status quo, under the Commonwealth Grant Rules and Guidelines and under the existing Senate orders 16 and 23E.

The Gallagher bill is also unclear about the time point at which an application is in fact reportable if it did not meet the criteria for a particular grant program. It has been accepted practice by governments of both political persuasions for a long time to provide opportunities for those applicants who are unsuccessful to approve their applications in some circumstances. If an application is found not to have initially met the criteria and later the proponent, having brought on changes that would improve the compliance with the relevant program criteria and before the minister approves, the Gallagher bill suggests it would have been reported as if it were outside guidelines. That is a misleading outcome. The bill only looks at what is in a grantee's application, not what is in the final grant agreement after a negotiation between proponents in the community and those government officials who sit here in Canberra. Therefore, the bill leaves open those proponents to reputational harm for those who have ultimately brought their application into close accord with the program requirements.

In addition to these two key defects in this legislation, we also see a duplication with those Senate orders 16 and 23E. Senate order 16 provides that ministers are able to table grants approved between estimates periods. Three times a year and at least seven days before each estimates round, the grant details are tabled to facilitate scrutiny of those same decisions by this very chamber. This duplicates entirely the requirements, with continuing effect, of Senate order 23E, which, as I've already outlined, requires the tabling of reports from other ministers to the finance minister about grants awarded contrary to departmental advice in any way, including those grants awarded in a minister's own electorate.

Senate order 23E only came into effect relatively recently, so the first tabling of documents under this accord occurred on 30 April this year. There has been no review of that reporting and no suggestion that the additional reporting is not of some value in upholding the transparency which Australians rightly expect we uphold in dishing out taxpayer money. If Senator Gallagher somehow thinks that Senate order 23E is deficient, perhaps we ought to be having a conversation around extending those terms—

The Deput:

Thank you, Senator Small. The time for this debate has now expired. You will be in continuation.