ADJOURNMENT

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (19:40): Before refrigeration was readily available, communities often used barrels, in which they placed their pork. Barrels were salted, and the pork lasted. Of course, that is where the term pork barrelling originated.

In 1927, there was an instrumental melody called 'Modranska Polka', composed by Czech musician Jaromir Vejvoda. 'Roll out the barrel'—we've all heard that. It should be Labor's theme song. I say that because we've just seen a report by the Centre for Public Integrity released, called Public money, political advantage?: Community infrastructure grant program raises serious integrity concerns.

When you look at the key findings of this report, they ring an alarming warning about community infrastructure grant programs—one in particular—by this federal government. I know and appreciate that election commitments must be funded, because, if you go to an election and you end up becoming a member of the government and you've made certain commitments, then those certain commitments, pledges or promises—call them what you like—should be met.

They should. I get that. But, under Labor, what we have seen, since May 2022, is rorting on a pork-barrelling scheme never seen before.

It is to new levels that this government has stooped when it comes to pork barrelling. In this report, the key dot points, on page 1, are headed thus: 'Grants were heavily focused in notionally ALP held seats', 'Marginal seats in which the ALP was competitive received disproportionately high funding', 'Funding was concentrated in some electoral divisions, while others received nothing', 'Funding was geographically concentrated', 'Significant disparities remain after adjusting for electors', and 'The funding pattern does not appear to be explained by community needs'.

If we were in government, if the coalition were in power, could you just imagine how this report would be met? There would be howls of protest. The media would be all over it.

There would be calls for the minister's head. I can just imagine it. I know this because I was once in charge of a $110 billion rollout of funding, and you know what?

I was fair. I absolutely made sure that, if a project met the criteria, certainly it was very much judged on its merits. I well recall, when Labor took office in May 2022, the first rollout of the mobile towers telecommunications program went all to Labor seats, and I well remember how Labor held protests about the colour coded spreadsheets.

We all remember that. The trouble with Labor colour coded red sheets is that they are all red. They only have one crayon colour, and it is red, because all of the funding goes to Labor held seats.

When you have an electorate as large as Riverina, with an electorate stretching from Matong to the outskirts of the Illawarra—I do border Whitlam—and you miss out on funding, it makes it difficult to justify. I have to say that regional funding is important. When the member for Ballarat, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, put her 90-day review onto infrastructure funding, it became a 200-day review, and regional areas have missed out.

I'll tell you what. There's one big tsunami coming as far as funding is concerned, and that is those memorial pools—those pools built just after World War II. They are going to require funding.

There are many, many National and Liberal Party held seats which are going to require funding for those wonderful pools.