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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-24 Daily Xml
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ST DIMITRIOS CHURCH

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:38): I rise to speak about the Premier's special appeal, minor grants and community grants fund, which, as I have placed on the record before, a senior manager in the Premier's department said usually pays grants of up to only about $3,000. We understand that it has total funding of a bit over $300,000. We are still awaiting, obviously, information in relation to all of the detail concerning that fund, and I am sure that when all the detail becomes apparent of some of the grants there may well be a number of matters of significant interest to the members who are interested in proper process in terms of the allocation of funding.

I refer in particular to the grant that has been made to the St Dimitrios Church. I highlighted yesterday, very quickly, that the church in Mr Rann's own electorate wrote a letter to Mr Rann, dated 26 June, asking for a grant towards a building and carpark project costing $430,000.

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan: Beware of Greeks seeking funds.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: That is not my view, but it is useful to put that view on the record, and the Hon. Mr Finnigan clearly speaks on behalf of Mr Rann and Mr Atkinson. On the same day, Mr Rann approved the grant and sent a memo to the acting treasurer, the Hon. Mr Holloway, and on the same day the acting treasurer, the Hon. Mr Holloway, approved the transfer of additional appropriation, and that was the subject of some questions yesterday. As a former treasurer, I indicated that it was virtually unprecedented for a grant of almost half a million dollars to be paid in the way that we saw through the Hon. Mr Holloway's processes.

We saw yesterday the government's response in the House of Assembly through Mr Rann and in this chamber through the Leader of the Government, Mr Holloway. When we see the nature of the response—when they are squirming and squealing—we know that we are onto something. The Leader of the Government in this place accused me of a number of things as he normally does: of being sleazy, being a hypocrite, being dishonest and living in the political sewer. I am not taking offence, Mr President: you did not rule it out of order. I happily listened to all of that and the precedent has been established now in relation to what is acceptable, but the best defence he could come up with was, 'You look at the federal government; they're pork-barrelling. They gave some money in the Sturt electorate; Mr Pyne or Mr Turnbull gave some money.'

The Hon. R. Wortley interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Mr Wortley says that Mr Olsen did—and whatever else. There was no defence of the Premier's processes at all. All they said was, 'But your federal people give grants to people, and that's outrageous; that's pork barrelling', and therefore that is the defence of Premier Rann in relation to this project.

In another place the Premier made accusations that implied racism, that it was an extraordinary attack on the Greek Orthodox Church, that it was a filthy attack on the Greek community and that other ethnic groups will now wonder whether the Liberal Party will target and attack them. Let me make quite clear, as I have done on a number of occasions: the first press release I put out said:

It is important to note that this statement makes no direct criticism of the church involved, but rather directs all its criticism at Mr Rann and the inadequacies of the processes used in making the grant.

Also yesterday I said:

As I said to the media, we make no criticism of the church involved. If it can get the money, good luck to it. Our concerns are with the Premier and his processes in relation to this issue.

There was no response from the Premier at all to the substance of the questions being raised. He has done this before: when he is squirming and squealing he launches a counter-attack and tries to browbeat the opposition or the opponent into cowering into giving up on the particular issue. I do not know whether you, Mr President, would vouch for this, but I assure the Premier that I am not a member who will be browbeaten by him, or indeed by anybody. If there are questions of potential breaches of Treasurer's instructions, if the processes are not proper or appropriate, or if there is something the Auditor-General should look at, irrespective of whether it is the Catholic Church (which is my church), the Greek Orthodox Church, the Scouts or whatever, those questions should and will be asked, and nothing the Premier or anyone else says will prevent me (nor should it prevent the parliament) from pursuing those issues.

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