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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-07-05 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Sports Funding

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (15:19): I rise today to express the opposition's absolute distress at what appears to be a classic example of pork-barrelling by this shameful Labor government: over $84 million in sports grants, all most all of which has gone to Labor-held or targeted seats.

Mr Speaker, I am sure you do not need any reminder of how damaging pork-barrelling is to public trust. It drags everyone down, and it lessens the confidence that our constituents hold in us as representatives. That is why it is our duty as an opposition to probe the government, to ask questions, to scrutinise and to call it out for what it is, which in this case is clear. The whole practice of distributing public money for political advantage rather than merit has been widely condemned by independent bodies right across the board, both in South Australia and across the nation, including by the Centre for Public Integrity.

On 2 June, in the budget we saw from this government that they had allocated over $84 million to provide, and I quote, 'grants for infrastructure and facility upgrades to sporting clubs'. We simply do not accept the understatement of just how significant $84 million is. It is a significant investment: $84 million allocated, bypassing the standard grant assessment process—not assessed by the Office for Rec and Sport on merit and not open for all clubs to apply for.

Let me make it clear that we on this side of the house take no issue with delivering worthy projects for local communities where they stack up, but it must be done by the book with proper process, and this government needed to show vigilance and responsibility with handing out this money. Instead, what we have seen is that 69 of the 72 grants have been allocated to Labor-held or targeted seats—96 per cent of this funding has gone into Labor-held or targeted seats.

Furthermore, they bypassed a very strict standard assessment process for these grants. No third party laid eyes on these projects. There was absolutely no assessment undertaken—not by the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing, not by anyone. Instead, it was assessed by none other than the Labor Party before the election, and that is just not good enough. What is worse, members and ministers of this government hold positions of high authority at these clubs. Not only do they hold positions of high authority but they have been directly involved in making these decisions.

When we asked ministers about the Ministerial Code of Conduct, when we asked them whether they have declared a conflict, guess what? They cannot tell us. It is absolutely appalling. The Ministerial Code of Conduct is very clear. It says, 'Ministers should avoid situations in which their private interests conflict, have the potential to conflict or appear to conflict with their public duty.' So when you hold the key position of authority at a club, and you lobby for that club and your signature goes on the cheque that goes to the club, guess what? That club receives money, there is no third party to scrutinise the merit of that grant, then something smells.

The public will become cynical—and they have. This is an absolute scandal. We have already seen an admission of guilt by this government. After the blowtorch was applied to this issue, we saw that, despite the government originally calling these funds grants, guess what? Despite their own budget calling them grants, all of a sudden they have tried to reinvent history and now refer to them as election commitments.

On several occasions in this place and in estimates, I asked the Minister for Sport whether any ministerial conflicts have been declared. The government has refused to provide any evidence of individual ministers declaring conflicts of interest in relation to this issue other than to say that all obligations have been complied with. That is simply not good enough.

We on this side of the house know that members advocate for their communities. Are they worthy projects? Potentially. But where were the independent third-party eyes looking over these decisions? Members of parliament must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest because if the public think that there is a conflict it drags us all down, it drags down this institution and it is a race to the bottom—and it is not on. So we will continue to ask more questions, we will continue to probe these grants further and we will continue to hold this government to account.

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