STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator McGRATH (Queensland) (13:42): Another day, another Labor scandal and more ministers hiding from transparency like the plague. I'm calling out the Prime Minister for allocating $6 million to his own local golf club from Labor's local community infrastructure program, or, as it's known, Labor's slush fund. The Prime Minister claims everything is above board—'Nothing to see here.

I didn't make the decision.' But what have we since learnt? Well, the Prime Minister is an honorary member of the golf club. The Prime Minister has a longstanding relationship with the club and has even used it for his own political fundraisers.

The Prime Minister announced the $6 million grant months before the grant scheme even opened and made the announcement in his own name with no reference to the so-called deciding minister. But he also hasn't mentioned he owns a home a couple of hundred metres from the golf club. So the Prime Minister has serious questions to answer here because not only did he not tell the truth about his relationship to the club—and it's not unusual that the Prime Minister didn't tell the truth—but he also failed to declare the conflict of interest.

He is the one who handed the golf club $6 million from a scheme that wasn't even in operation. We thought that was pretty bad. Then along came the health minister, Mark Butler.

He said to the Prime Minister, 'Hold my beer because I'm going to give $6 million to my local soccer club.' This was a soccer club that didn't have the plans in place and didn't have the costings or anything like that. The health minister just said, 'Take the money,' no questions asked. This is a disturbing story of how the Labor Party are using taxpayers' money to prop up their own election interests.

I'm glad the Senate is going to inquire into this. I'm disappointed but not surprised that Labor voted against the inquiry.