Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance, Senator Birmingham. How many funds in the Morrison-Joyce government's budget are allocated at the discretion of the minister, and what is their total value?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't have those details immediately to hand, as I'm sure would not be a surprise to Senator Gallagher. I'm happy to take those details on notice so far as we can extract that information. As Senator Gallagher well knows, the direct administration of funds occurs across a range of portfolios. The Department of Finance operates the Commonwealth grant guidelines and has a role in relation to the approval of those grant guidelines, which are then administered across the relevant portfolio departments by different ministers, providing support for a range of different services right around the country.

One particular example that comes to mind is that Commonwealth grants have been used as vehicles during COVID-19 to provide additional support to early childhood education and care services. Indeed, they've also been used as a vehicle by Senator Colbeck in this chamber to help provide additional targeted support to aged-care facilities around Australia. So the grant guidelines are used for a range of different functions and purposes in terms of supporting the delivery of Commonwealth assistance. Yes, they often support—and I suspect this will be where Senator Gallagher goes—a range of different local or community related projects, and those projects are done in accordance with those grant guidelines too. But the types of discretion that are provided, the types of non-competitive processes that exist in place, are often there to enable swift response by ministers in circumstances such as those that I outlined before: supporting direct targeted assistance to sectors that need it most at different junctures such as those in aged care or early childhood during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Slade Brockman (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Gallagher, a supplementary question?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister confirm that, over eight long years of the Morrison-Joyce government, ministers have allocated 71 per cent of $3.9 billion worth of taxpayer funds in these discretionary grant funds to coalition seats?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can confirm that Senator Gallagher is quoting from what I understand to be an Australia Institute study that has selectively chosen a number—a very small number—of Commonwealth grant programs upon which to base its analysis. That's where Senator Gallagher is drawing her figures from: an Australia Institute survey. I imagine she is quoting from the report published in the Guardian of the Australia Institute survey. It's quite a virtuous little cycle we've got going here. The Australia Institute does the report, the Guardian publishes it and the Labor Party asks about it, but, of course, it's all just selective reporting when it comes to these matters. The fact is that, in selecting these targeted areas, there's a disproportionate capturing regional grants, for example, where the coalition holds the vast majority of electorates, so it would be of little surprise that these regional programs support— (Time expired)

Slade Brockman (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Gallagher, a second supplementary?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister explain why seats held by independents and that the coalition wanted to win back have received an average of $206 per person, coalition-held seats have received $184 per person and safe Labor seats have received just $39 per person? Why are some Australians worth more than others to Mr Morrison?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

r BIRMINGHAM (—) (): I think I can give it a crack in terms of explaining, in relation to regional grants programs, why it is that coalition seats have benefited overall—when you take all electorates across the country—more than Labor-held seats or even why Independents might've benefited more. That would be the maths of the fact that the coalition holds more regional seats than the Labor Party does. In terms of proportionality, the Independents have greater representation in some of the regions than they do in some of the urban areas. In terms of distorting statistics and figures, which is what is being bowled up here, the simple reality of these programs is, yes, they will support Liberal and National Party held seats to a greater degree because those communities have elected Liberal and National Party MPs across regional Australia, or in some cases they've elected Independent MPs. That is simply a function of our parties holding those electorates.