Mr TRUSS (Leader of the Nationals) (3:56 PM) —For six months we have been listening to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government criticising the Regional Partnerships program. He has been calling hundreds of community groups with loyal hardworking volunteers ‘rorters’. He has suggested that the projects being put forward by these hundreds of groups are not worth while, that they are not worthy of funding. He has said that this program was delivering no benefits to rural and regional Australia and to areas in our country in particular need. When asked today what he had actually been doing in his own six months in the office, he said he has been reading the Auditor-General’s report. Even if he has read all 1,200 pages, that is six pages a day. We certainly need an education revolution if we have a minister of the Crown who can manage reading only six pages a day. However, if he is only going to read the critical pages of the Regional Partnerships program report, not those praising the program and what it has actually achieved over the years, that probably reduces his reading effort to about six paragraphs a day.

The reality is the minister has never studied that report, just as he admitted on Koch’s program on Channel 7 that he had not read the files of the projects that he had failed to fund. He admitted that he had not even read the files of the 116 projects approved by the previous government which he was refusing to fund. That is an extraordinary statement from the minister. In six months of constant criticism of the applicants for these projects, six months of tearing away at the social infrastructure of communities, he admits he had not even read the files. It took an embarrassing performance from him on the Sunrise program for him to start to realise that perhaps he had better look more seriously at these projects. Then in a late night telephone call to David Koch an embarrassed minister said:

So, after six months of saying they were all rorts, suddenly he realised there are some good community projects amongst this and he was going to fast-track the consideration of these projects. It is interesting because shortly after the government was elected he said he was going to fast-track the consideration of these projects. Then that promise was repeated in the Senate estimates in February. They were going to fast-track the consideration of these projects.

Six months later the minister had not even read the files, yet he had the audacity to claim that all these projects were rorts. It was not just the minister’s own comments that damn him in this regard. He asked his parliamentary secretary, the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia, who I note is now trying to brief him at the table. Maybe he did read some of the files, because he wrote to scores of applicants for the Regional Partnerships program and said:

So the parliamentary secretary knew that it was urgent to deal with these issues, but nothing was done until budget night. Then on budget night the projects were axed—100 per cent of them. The government said that they would not be funded—none of them was to be funded. It took an avalanche of complaints to Channel 7 and to members of parliament, including I have no doubt from some members who sit behind the minister, to draw his attention to the fact that there were actually some really good projects. There were some childcare centres. There were some respite centres. There were important things that needed to be done and maybe they should be funded. So, in an extraordinary and miraculous turnaround, the minister announced that all 116 would be offered funding.

It is interesting to note that amongst the 116 that he offered funding was the turtle interpretive centre in Bundaberg, the very project that the minister was criticising today at length. He actually offered it funding. He also said that they had originally asked for a smaller amount of money but that the previous government gave them twice as much as they had asked for. What he did not admit, probably because he has not read the file, was that the council actually asked for more money. They actually wrote a letter requesting an additional amount of money because the cost of the project had grown. The letter also reported that the Labor state government in Queensland had decided to give an additional amount to this project and asked the Commonwealth to provide extra assistance. So it was okay for the state Labor government to provide increased funding for the Bundaberg turtle interpretive centre, but when the coalition government provided additional money somehow or other that was a rort. This is a classic example of this minister having failed to even read the files.

Today we have the truth of the story coming to the front pages of the paper: ‘PM rolls out his own pork barrel’. During the election campaign the Prime Minister made it absolutely clear, and he repeated these words on several successive occasions, that if he were elected to government he would implement a three-step process for the approval of funds for regional projects. He said that applications would have to have support from the local council or local consultative committee or the state government; secondly, they would have to fall within the definition of local economic or community infrastructure; and, thirdly, they would have to pass federal departmental analysis. He said:

He repeated the statements the next day. But what in fact was happening? Already, by that time, Labor had promised dozens, scores, perhaps even a hundred projects that they were going to fund under their new Better Regions Program. None of these projects were going to be subject to any kind of scrutiny. There was not going to be any kind of examination of their merits. Different rules were to apply to them than were expected by the minister to apply to Regional Partnerships. The Prime Minister laid down three clear conditions which he asserted time and time again would have to be met before any projects could be funded. But in reality Labor was preparing its own rorts list—a giant rorts list of 105 projects—and today we hear that all but one are in Labor electorates or in electorates Labor was trying to win. In fact, the one that was excluded from that list was actually in the electorate of the honourable member for Fisher. Labor was actually backing an Independent candidate to knock him off in that particular electorate. So I would argue that all of these projects were in Labor electorates or in electorates that Labor sought to win. What were the merits of these projects?

Mr Albanese —We won them.

Mr TRUSS —The minister has interjected that the merit was that Labor won the seats. That was the only merit. He has admitted that this was a pork-barrelling exercise, that it was a rort designed solely to help Labor to win these seats. Let us look at some of the projects. Why was the Cairns multisports stadium to get $1.5 million when the Coffs Harbour sports centre got nothing? That was one of the ones to be left off the list. Why was the Port Sorell Surf Lifesaving Club to get money but the Bunbury rescue craft to be defunded? Why was the King Island recreation and food trail project to be funded but not the Cooroy Lower Mill Site project? Why was the Mackay aquatic centre to be funded but not the Derby Memorial Pool? Why was Territory AFL to get $2½ million but the Rugby Union School of Excellence to be defunded? What were the criteria that the government went through in choosing these particular projects? How many of these projects had gone through the scrutiny required by the Prime Minister? How many of them had been through the three-step process and, in particular, how many of them had actually been through and passed the federal departmental analysis? The reality is: not one of them. Some of them had been through the federal departmental process and actually been rejected.

Mr Albanese —Identify one.

Mr TRUSS —The Dysart community hall. The minister asked me to identify one. They applied, they were knocked back and then Labor decided to fund it. Surprise, surprise! It is in a Labor electorate. What about the fishing grants in Gippsland? It was very interesting to see the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry going to Gippsland to announce $11 million worth of projects, none of which is going through the Prime Minister’s alleged examination process. None of them has been through the three steps. Some of those projects, incidentally, did go through a departmental analysis, and they were rejected. They were not approved. But, instead, Labor are going to go ahead and fund those particular projects. Those projects that Labor are about to fund are probably worth while and are probably meritorious, but so were the 116 they rejected and which have now come back. Many of the Labor projects will do worthwhile things in their local communities, but are they more worthy than the other projects that they had rejected? Or have they been chosen for one reason and one reason only—they were in Labor electorates? They were in electorates Labor wanted to win and they were so desperate that they were prepared to create their own regional program just to fund these schemes.

This is another extraordinary thing about what the Labor Party did with their 105 pork-barrelling projects. They created a special program called Better Regions, and the only projects to be funded under the Better Regions program are the 105 that Labor announced before the election. The program did not exist before the election; it will not exist in the future. No-one else can apply for a project under Better Regions; only the Labor rorters could apply for funding under this particular program. This is a special program designed to be immune from the standards of governance that the Labor Party said were important for the Regional Partnerships program. These projects have not been through the three-stage examination. The minister has now written to some suggesting that they will have to go through some kind of an application process, but that is contrary to what the Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister has said, ‘All of these projects will be funded.’ Senator Conroy repeated it in Senate estimates a couple of days ago. All these projects will be funded, irrespective of whether they meet the criteria, whether they are the most meritorious or whether there are other projects that would have ranked higher if they had been subjected to any kind of proper analysis.

This is a rort—it is pork-barrelling on a grand scale. It is an exclusive slush fund for Labor Party marginal electorates. It is a scandal, and it is a scandal particul-arly because the person who has been orchestrating it, conducting the orchestra, is the one who has been critical of previous programs. If he had a degree of honesty in his body he would certainly have been crying out against this Labor rort scheme and he would be refusing to have anything to do with it. But instead he is actually the king of the rorts scandal, including the famous Fort Street rort—$14½ million for soundproofing a school in his own electorate. The minister only funded one school: a school in his own electorate—not the schools in Kurnell or other places around Sydney where there are noise and issues associated with aircraft movements. There is no funding for schools in Adelaide or for schools in country communities or in cities where trucks have to go up hills and are probably noisier than at the Fort Street school. One school has been chosen for this particular program, and it is in the electorate of the minister, who claims he is bringing honesty to regional programs and yet has put $14 million into his own electorate.

His justification for this was that it was promised in four or five election campaigns. Ironically, the Fraser Island world heritage centre was promised in four elections, and yet Labor calls that a rort. So, if in another electorate something is promised in three or four elections and the Labor Party and the state governments are not prepared to put in their contribution and the project is axed, then that is a rort. But, if it is a state school, where the state is supposed to provide the facilities and the funding, in the minister’s electorate, that is a legitimate use of government money. The reality is that the minister is the king of the rorters. The language that he has used to describe small community groups that have not enjoyed the largesse that is being handed out in the minister’s own electorate is a disgrace.

The reality is that Labor have been all froth and bubble and no substance. They are loud in their criticism, but they have invented their own Better Regions program. The only better regions are Labor regions, and Labor is providing huge funding for selected electorates just for electoral purposes. That is what rorting is about, and this minister should be ashamed of himself. (Time expired)