DOCUMENTS

Senator SHELDON (New South Wales—Chief Government Whip in the Senate) (11:23): I'll start with two words: sports rorts. The culprit at the centre of one of the biggest rorting scandals in Australia's history is trying to play prosecutor. The hypocrisy is absolutely staggering.

We've gone through the list. I'll go through it again because not one of those on the opposite side went to ask any one of those shadow ministers, including the Leader of the Opposition, or one of those members of the Liberal Party about alleged conflicts of interest on the basis of the propaganda and the approach that's used by Senator McKenzie and by the other speakers on the other side.

Maybe those on the other side have forgotten what happened when Senator McKenzie was the sports minister. I'll remind them yet again. Isn't it remarkable that, instead of telling Australians how they would help them with housing and rather than turning around and talking about the cost of living and how to get better wages—we know what they want to do about wages; they actually want to decrease them—Senator McKenzie is more focused on talking about election commitments that are delivered to local communities.

Our commitments followed the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Principles. Our commitments followed the recommendations of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, made up of MPs and senators from across the political spectrum, including members of Senator McKenzie's own side of politics. Most importantly, our commitments were made to deliver for local communities, not sorted on a colour coded spreadsheet or made for personal political gain.

Senator McKenzie might be familiar with those colour coded sheets because, of course, she was at the centre of it. Nine out of the 10 electorates that received the most funding were marginal target electorates, based on a colour coded spreadsheet. Let's remind ourselves—I've said it before; I'm going to say it again—that 73 per cent of the projects Senator McKenzie approved went against the recommendations of the Australian Sports Commission, then known as Sport Australia.

And it gets worse, because the Senate inquiry into these sports rorts found more than 40 per cent of the projects that received the funding were considered ineligible by the Audit Office. While all the sports rorts were going on, she even failed to disclose her own active membership of a gun club that received almost $36,000 from the very program she oversaw.

This is a gun club she was active in. She failed to tell anyone. I can see why, when I go through this list, she's only applying it selectively to anyone else.

Of course you're going to say you need—Senator McKenzie quite clearly turned around in 2024 and disclosed that she forgot about 16 flight upgrades that she received over nine years while pointing the finger at everybody else. What a clown show it is to turn around and have these people on the opposite side prosecuting this particular argument! Let's go to some of those on the opposite side.

The member for Hume, opposition leader Angus Taylor, promised $200,000 to upgrade amenities at the 1st Appin Scout Group, where he held an honorary membership that wasn't declared on his register of interests. Under McKenzie's rules, obviously the opposition leader is guilty! After the comments from members of parliament— Opposition senators interjecting— Senator SHELDON: No matter how much they interject, after comments from person after person on the basis of their rules and on their assessment, that's the way they should be actually be speaking about the opposition leader.

Then it goes to the member for Bowman, Henry Pike, who promised $1.1 million to the EGW Wood Sportfield, home of the Redlands Tigers, a club that listed him as a patron. That wasn't declared on his register of interests. On the basis of what they're putting forward, that person is guilty.

So you've got the member for Bowman as well as the leader. You've got the member for Herbert, Phil Thompson—$232,000 to the Jubilee Bowls Club. Under the McKenzie rules, he's guilty.

Then you go back to the declaring of interests by Senator McKenzie. Let's spend less time pointing fingers across the chamber and a little more time asking questions of her colleagues on the basis of the assessment that she's using, because, on the assessment that she's using, they are guilty. Either they're guilty or they're not.

If you're going to use that assessment, you have to use that assessment appropriately. At the last election, they promised $1.6 billion; they have $1.6 billion they refuse to make themselves accountable for. That's completely how they operate over there: sports rorts, shame, hypocrisy, and constantly turning around and failing to have the standards that they apply to anyone else applying to them.

(Time expired)