catherine king needs to go to jail for this what a crook.
Yesterday, Treasurer Joe Hockey called on the former minister for regional services Catherine King to apologise for having “rorted the Australian taxpayer”.
Ms King claimed she had been misrepresented, and told parliament that two thirds of the projects funded had been in non-Labor seats.
But the audit of the final rounds of the RDAF shows almost half of the grant money and one in four projects funded by Labor were not supported by its appointed expert panel. Thirty-three projects judged “not of sufficient quality” to receive grants won 48 per cent of $226 million awarded just four months before the election.
The $1 billion fund was a key commitment made by Julia Gillard to secure the support of independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor to form minority government in 2010.
Details of the successful grants show that two western Sydney projects were among those the government approved to receive regional grants against advice.
In June last year, the federal Labor government announced $12m towards the development of the Western Sydney Community and Sports Centre in Penrith, which was in the marginal seat of Lindsay, held by Labor’s David Bradbury.
In the seat of McMahon, held by Labor’s Chris Bowen, the government allocated $7.3m for the Fairfield youth and community centre.
Both had been rejected by the panel, which advised Ms King that they were “not strong” and had “no identifiable positive impact on the broader community” to justify the grant.
Yet while Labor funnelled money to projects in marginal electorates that were not deemed appropriate, The Australian can reveal that a wide range of worthy projects missed out.
Most of these were in Coalition-held electorates.
A small community hospital in Keith, in the safe Liberal seat of Barker in regional South Australia, had its application for $200,000 knocked back, despite the panel recommending it receive $400,000.
In the southern NSW region of Riverina, a program for disadvantaged, homeless and drug-dependent youth was set to receive $500,000 in round four of the project, but the decision of the panel was also ignored.
Just days before the election, Labor announced it would fund the project under round five of the grants scheme after the election.
Member for Riverina Michael McCormack said revelations that the project had earlier been rejected against the advice of the panel showed Labor had deliberately diverted funding away from the regions. “People in regional areas missed out because Labor wanted to cling on to power, and they did it at the cost of regional people so desperately in need of those services,” he said.
Other unsuccessful applicants included the Can Assist Sydney Accommodation Facility, which was advanced by The Cancer Patients’ Assistance Society of NSW. It had sought $10m. It was unsuccessful despite the panel ranking it more “suitable” than 33 other projects funded.
Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs told parliament yesterday that the report demonstrated the desperation of the former government in its dying days.
