ANDREW GILES MP
ACTING SHADOW MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CITIES AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP
MEMBER FOR SCULLIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
MELBOURNE
TUESDAY, 29 JUNE 2021
SUBJECTS: Car Park Rorts; the PMO’s dodgy spreadsheets.
ANDREW GILES, SHADOW MINISTER FOR CITIES AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE: Before I start, I just want to reflect as a Melburnian on what it must be like for people right around the country right now, waking up to a pretty difficult day. We've been through it, so, I hope that people in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Darwin know that we are thinking of them and sending them all of our best.
Yesterday, the Auditor General headed down a genuinely shocking document, the most shocking audit report I've seen in my eight years in the Parliament. What it reveals is nothing less than Sports Rorts on an industrial scale. Just like Sports Rorts this goes right to the Prime Minister's office where we see revelations of spreadsheets being shared between ministerial offices and the Prime Minister's Office before a critical decision. Now, it is absolutely imperative that the Prime Minister comes clean, that he reveals these spreadsheets so the Australian people can understand the basis upon which these decisions were made. Because the program we're talking about is an important one. It's part of the $4.8 billion program, the Urban Congestion Fund, that has been beset by many, many crises. This component of it, the Commuter Car Park fund, is $660 million of public money. Public money that has been used to benefit the Liberal Party and its candidates, not Australian commuters. Now, we all understand that congestion is a major problem in Australia and we all understand the pressures on commuters and the importance of enabling people to have more efficient trips to work and commuter car parks play a vital role. But they need to be determined on need and evidence, not the whim of political parties, not only the advice of candidates, which appears to be the case here. And that's why we see all this money, 83% of it, going to Liberal seats. That's why, frankly, we see the incompetence that has characterised this program's delivery with only two projects completed and six abandoned, showing they never should have been proposed in the first place. And that's why we see such an uneven distribution of these projects. The minister talks about need, but how come in Melbourne's growing western suburbs, there wasn't a single project, whereas in the seat of Goldstein around Brighton, six projects were identified prior to the election. This really has been rorting on an industrial scale and it has
taken commuters around Australia for an absolute ride.
This morning, the Minister got up and astonishingly he sought to defend the program. I say astonishingly, but perhaps I shouldn't, because it was Minister Fletcher who was the minister responsible for the Leppington Triangle purchase. Australians remember that he authorised the expenditure $30 million on land only valued at $3 million and wrote a note that said, "seems perfectly sensible to me". For only a minister like that could come out and defend this programme and, indeed, talk about my ambition. My ambition is for Minister Fletcher to do his job and start delivering for Australian commuters. Labor's ambition is to deliver infrastructure based on need, to take seriously the concerns of commuters, not to treat this all as a political plaything. To treat public money seriously, not for political parties benefit and fundamentally to respect our democracy. That's why Labor will be not resting, we will be taking every step to get to the bottom of this rotten scandal and to expose the warts at the core. Any questions?
JOURNALIST: You described this as Sports Rorts on an industrial scale. Why are you using that language?
GILES: What we have seen from this Government is a consistent pattern of misusing public monies for political advantage. We have seen that is so many programs like the Building Better Regions Fund, but most egregiously in Sports Rorts when it was revealed that spreadsheets shared between minister’s office and the Prime Minister's Office were the basis for funding decisions instead of any objective merit based consideration. What appears from this very shocking audit report is exactly the same suggestion that there are spreadsheets that were circulated for a meeting involving the Prime Minister, the then Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister, which seemed to be the basis for these decisions.
JOURNALIST: How confident are you that extra funding for a car park in a marginal electorate would actually change votes?
GILES: Well, it seems that the Prime Minister is a very clever politician, we've seen lots of evidence of that. We know that he's been intimately involved in these campaign decisions for some time, we know that these decisions were concentrated in marginal seats. And one thing I know, as a suburban representative, is how important it is for people seeking to balance the demands of their lives to be able to do so. And I know if you're dropping off kids in preschool and you've got to catch the 7:48 train, that being able to get a car park at the station is absolutely vital. So, I think this was a very powerful message ahead of the election, but it created false hope for Australians.
JOURNALIST: If these car parks had been funded on merit, do you have an idea of which they might have been funding?
GILES: Well, I think you would have seen a much more even distribution around the country. And I think you'd see a greater concentration in growth areas. I said earlier, not a single one in Melbourne's western suburbs, despite it including some of the fastest growing parts of the country. Only one in suburban Perth, none in Adelaide, twice as many in Melbourne than in Sydney, it just doesn't add up if it was allocated on any basis other than political decision making.
JOURNALIST: What should be the repercussions for the minister responsible?
GILES: Well, the Minister should account for themselves in the first instance. Because I mean, we will pursue every angle to get to the bottom of this misuse of $660 million of public money. But this could be a lot quicker and simpler if Minister Tudge, the minister then responsible, fronts up to the media now and explains his decision making. If he seeks to justify what he did, if he doesn't do what Minister Fletcher did this morning and say it's all ok. All Minister Fletcher did, this is "seems perfectly sensible to me" Minister Fletcher, was to say, effectively, we won the election, so these decisions are fine. Now, that is thumbing his nose, and his government's nose, at the Australian people and indeed, at our democracy. As I said earlier, it's incumbent on the Prime Minister to explain his role and to come clean about exactly what he and his office did around this scandal. spreadsheets that were circulated for a meeting involving the Prime Minister, the then Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister, which seemed to be the basis for these decisions.
JOURNALIST: How confident are you that extra funding for a car park in a marginal electorate would actually change votes?
GILES: Well, it seems that the Prime Minister is a very clever politician, we've seen lots of evidence of that. We know that he's been intimately involved in these campaign decisions for some time, we know that these decisions were concentrated in marginal seats. And one thing I know, as a suburban representative, is how important it is for people seeking to balance the demands of their lives to be able to do so. And I know if you're dropping off kids in preschool and you've got to catch the 7:48 train, that being able to get a car park at the station is absolutely vital. So, I think this was a very powerful message ahead of the election, but it created false hope for Australians.
JOURNALIST: If these car parks had been funded on merit, do you have an idea of which they might have been funding?
GILES: Well, I think you would have seen a much more even distribution around the country. And I think you'd see a greater concentration in growth areas. I said earlier, not a single one in Melbourne's western suburbs, despite it including some of the fastest growing parts of the country. Only one in suburban Perth, none in Adelaide, twice as many in Melbourne than in Sydney, it just doesn't add up if it was allocated on any basis other than political decision making.
JOURNALIST: What should be the repercussions for the minister responsible?
GILES: Well, the Minister should account for themselves in the first instance. Because I mean, we will pursue every angle to get to the bottom of this misuse of $660 million of public money. But this could be a lot quicker and simpler if Minister Tudge, the minister then responsible, fronts up to the media now and explains his decision making. If he seeks to justify what he did, if he doesn't do what Minister Fletcher did this morning and say it's all ok. All Minister Fletcher did, this is "seems perfectly sensible to me" Minister Fletcher, was to say, effectively, we won the election, so these decisions are fine. Now, that is thumbing his nose, and his government's nose, at the Australian people and indeed, at our democracy. As I said earlier, it's incumbent on the Prime Minister to explain his role and to come clean about exactly what he and his office did around this scandal.
JOURNALIST: Why did you decide to refer this to the Auditor-General in the first place?
GILES: I was very concerned at the impact of this programme. It was clear to me that some of the projects that are announced, including the South Morang one, had been done without any consultation with local councils and indeed could not be built. This is a very significant programme that attracted significant public attention, and clearly was not functioning as it was understood to by the public. I had real concerns about that and I'm pleased the Auditor General took those concerns seriously, although I am shocked with exactly what his investigations have revealed.
JOURNALIST: What's your message to people who are trying to commute effectively and can't find car parks around Australia?
GILES: My message to those communities in Australia is that Labor is listening. Labor will listen to you and will make decisions based on the evidence. We have a proud record of infrastructure investment. It was Anthony Albanese, who introduced Infrastructure Australia to take the politics out of decision making and to put the evidence back in. We will work with local governments, we will work with state governments, and we will support productive infrastructure investment that's in the interests of the Australian people, not the interests of the Liberal Party.