Senator RYAN (Victoria) (3:08 PM) —I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment Participation (Senator Arbib) to questions without notice asked by Senators Ryan, Eggleston and Payne today.
Over the last few days, there has been much discussion in this chamber, in the other place and in the media about the application of funding under various aspects of the Labor stimulus program. I am not going to talk in a more general sense about the stimulus program—that will be covered by my colleagues—but I will address some of these facts that have been in the public domain. The reason this has been in the public domain is that Labor has form. There is good reason for the public to doubt Labor’s claims that funds are applied in a fair and transparent way. Those who have been around this place a long time will remember the whiteboard. Those in states that have, unfortunately, been governed by the Labor Party will know that when independent panels are quoted by the Labor Party it is often a veil of independence to cover a politically motivated program.
It took the Minister for Employment Participation a while to come back to this chamber and outline that the panel’s advice with respect to the Science and Language Centres for 21st Century Secondary Schools program had been followed. But the minister could not confirm whether there had been any discussion between either his office and the panel or between the responsible minister’s office and the panel about this funding program. Those questions need to be answered. The question we have today is: why on earth do these numbers betray such a political agenda? I will quote a few of these numbers for the benefit of the record. Under the science and language centres program, Labor marginal seats receive on average $1 million more than coalition seats. Inner metropolitan seats held by Labor receive an extraordinary 3½ times as much as the same type of seat held by the coalition—$3.5 million compared with just under $1 million each on average. Labor seats in outer metropolitan areas receive almost double the amount coalition seats receive—$5.6 million to $2.9 million—and when all metropolitan seats across Australia are considered the bias in favour of government held seats is more than doubled: $4.4 million to $2.1 million. Australia is a relatively homogeneous country and when like is being compared with like there are very serious questions to be answered about how any panel could come to such an extraordinary differential in applying funding for schools.
Despite the much smaller number of seats held in rural Australia, we also see a bias there in favour of the government. Government held rural seats receive just under $9.6 million, with coalition seats receiving a little over $9.3 million each on average. The bias is comprehensive and begs an answer. When we consider marginal seats in the state of Queensland, the numbers are again extraordinary and defy belief if we believe what the government has to say. Nine government held marginal seats in the state of Queensland receive on average just over $8.1 million each, whereas seven coalition held marginal seats in the same state receive just under $5.2 million each. On average, government held marginal seats in the state of Queensland receive nearly $3 million more than their coalition counterparts. In my home state of Victoria, the bias is again quite extraordinary: every single government held seat received funding under the program, whereas just under one in five non-Labor seats missed out entirely. Of metropolitan seats in Victoria, coalition held electorates received an average of $2 million each and Labor held electorates received an average of $6.5 million each. These numbers come from the government’s own figures, and the classifications of seats are the same as those used by the Australian Electoral Commission. We have read in today’s Australian Financial Review that the community infrastructure program has also seen a similar level of bias in its application of funding around Australia.
The Labor Party has long had form on this—a leopard does not change its spots. Whether it hides behind a veil of independence does not change the fact that the numbers tell us something. The numbers tell us that money is being spent in Labor held seats at the expense of the rest of the community. Everyone pays taxes, but not everyone receives the benefit. This is a stimulus program for the Labor Party, not a stimulus program for Australia.