The golden age of government rorting continues, with an auditor-general report finding the government’s Safer Communities Fund funnelled money to Coalition-held and marginal electorates.
According to the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), a majority (54%) of funding decisions made during five rounds of the $184 million program were made without a clear basis for the decision recorded.
The fund was initially set up in 2016, and intended to help local councils tackle crime and other anti-social behaviour. Later, in the aftermath of the Christchurch attack, it was expanded to include protecting schools and community organisations against risks related to racial or religious intolerance.
Dutton’s big rorts
The auditor-general’s analysis of the fund indicated 59% of projects funded were in Coalition-held electorates, with just 27% in Labor electorates. Of the projects funded in Labor-held electorates, all but one (99%) were marginal seats.
The Safer Communities Fund was referred to the auditor-general last year, after reports that former home affairs minister Peter Dutton, largely responsible for the fund, had overruled merit-based assessments made by his own department and had funded his own hand-picked list.
At a Senate estimates hearing late last night, ANAO executive director Brian Boyd confirmed that in round three of the fund, which triggered the referral to the auditor-general and was presided over by Dutton, 91% of funding ended up in Coalition-held or marginal seats. The report noted this was one of the most significant trends across the funding round.
During this round, two projects in Tasmania were funded ahead of the 2018 Braddon byelection before being assessed, and in spite of the department noting they didn’t represent value for money. At estimates last night, Boyd confirmed Dutton had been the minister responsible for approving the funding. Back in 2018, Dutton spent $36,000 on a RAAF jet to Tasmania where he announced the grants.
Churches win, temples lose
The auditor-general’s report also found a significant skewing of funding toward certain religious groups. Despite the fund’s broad remit, 84% of community organisations funded were religious ones. Funding overwhelmingly went to Christian and Jewish organisations, and the report notes Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Sikh groups were relatively under-represented in both applications and final funding.
In submissions made to the ANAO, Hindu and Tamil groups raised concerns about “favouritism to European religions or communities” in distribution of grants. The Hindu Council of Australia wrote that the process favoured groups able to access grant submission consultants to assist with applications, leading to under-representation of South Asian religious groups among applicants and recipients.
Government’s rorting continues
The report is just the latest example of dubious use of various community grants under the Morrison government. Last year, the ANAO revealed a $660 million program to fund commuter carparks had largely favoured Coalition seats, with a list of the top 20 marginal electorates drawn up in minister Alan Tudge’s office forming the basis for funding decisions ahead of the 2019 election.
The $100 million community sport infrastructure program was rorted to favour Coalition seats in 2019. While it led to the demise of former Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie, she’s now returned to cabinet. A $150 million program to fund female swimming change rooms overwhelmingly favoured Coalition electorates. And as Crikey reported last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave more than $4 million worth of public money to a Pentecostal organisation.
Meanwhile, the Leppington Triangle rort made a return at estimates yesterday. A 2020 report from the ANAO found the government paid $30 million for land owned by Liberal Party donors, which was later valued at just $3 million. But a key public servant at the heart of the deal is now challenging that finding.
A submission from a Commonwealth public servant investigated by police was uploaded shortly before the hearing, disputing the ANAO’s finding of over-valuation, and accusing the auditor-general of “unreasonable conduct” and misleading Parliament over the land deal.
It would seem that ScoMo’s leading
a cabal of shysters bleeding
all we voters with some programs which, according to reports,
take some paper bags of money
and just chuck them down the dunny
in a ballot-buying con-game of co-ordinated rorts.
All our Coalition masters,
with their policy disasters,
have just given us another taste of rorting déjà vu
with their lying propaganda
as they desperately pander
to the “quiet ones” by bribing them to keep on voting blue.
The election that is coming
means they’ll once again be thumbing
all their noses at electors as they try to make up ground,
and it wouldn’t be surprising
if we saw them organising
a new Minister for Rorting who’ll keep chucking money round!
That’s just brilliance.
“…. a majority (54%) of funding decisions made during five rounds of the $184 million program were made without a clear basis for the decision recorded.”? …. Maybe they did? …. Then maybe shredded those records too?
In the blood :- “Best Economic Managers – and Documentary Evidence Shredders”?
And blowing “$36,000 (of our hard-earned) on a RAAF jet to Tasmania where he announced the grants”? Who does PC Plodd think he is? St Matthias Cormann? .
I heard Conmann’s OECD speech recently and was gobsmacked. Not only did Oz spend a fortune getting him elected but a perfect impersonator was found to parrot left wing views on climate action and poverty. And they wonder why we hold them in contempt!
“The $100 million community sport infrastructure program was rorted to favour Coalition seats in 2019. While it led to the demise of former nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie, she’s now returned to cabinet.”
Misleading. The Morrison Gang’s investigation found there was no rort and of course therefore nobody resigned or was sacked. However McKenzie breached ministerial standards by failing to declare she was a member of the Wangaratta Clay Target Club before awarding it a community sporting grant. McKenzie had a second undeclared conflict of interest in her membership of Field and Game Australia. McKenzie insisted these conflicts did not influence her but she resigned anyway.
The key point here is that the the Morrison Gang has always denied there was any rorting of any of grant schemes and it still does. As the old saying goes, if it looks like a rort, walks like a rort, and quacks like a rort, it’s actually a totally fair, justified, reasonable and above-board allocation of grant funds to community projects by the Minister.
You forgot ‘transparent.’
“Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?” From “the Profumo Affair, was that the 1950s or 60s?
That was Mandy Rice-Bubbles answering a silk decked & horsehair bewigged QC at the old Bailey, 1963.
Incandescent! Straight-out corruption of governance by GOVERNMENT.
What is the point of parliamentary oversight. Auditor-General’s scrutiny of financial management. Federal Police AFP, that alleges unable to investigate possible criminal activity.
As a citizen, I question every elected parliamentarian. Accountabilities, transparency, both democratic foundations. If as an elected member of parliament you have no means available to call-out your colleagues; why are you still there? For God’s sake at least terminate your association and depart from your throne!
Cease attending Question ‘Time’ circus. Instead, get yourself a coffee and go sit on front steps of Parliament. You have nothing to contribute.
Agreed. Some of these shonks need to be in jail. Not in cabinet.