Mr KIELY - 2002-02-28
The Auditor-General has made damning findings about the former CLP government’s abuse of the Community Benefit Fund. What were those findings and what has the Labor government set in train to ensure such abuse does not occur again?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sanderson for his question. There were questions around this for quite some time prior to the last election, and try as I might as shadow minister for Racing and Gaming, whose ministry held responsibility for the Community Benefit Fund, it was never possible to get an answer from the then minister for Racing and Gaming, and certainly harder than trying to get blood out of a stone to get anything from the former Treasurer.
The Auditor-General has had a look at this whole question of the Community Benefit Fund, and his investigations have laid bare several quite serious concerns about the use of public monies under the former government. The Community Benefit Fund, for those who do not know, accumulated as a result of additional taxation levels on hotel poker machines following their introduction on 1 January 1996. Yet, barely 18 months after those machines were introduced into the community in July 1997, disbursements from the fund to community groups ceased - bearing in mind this was a fund for community benefit, that was its title, Community Benefit Fund - but disbursements ceased pending a review of the gaming industry. A small number of payments each year continue to be made to services involved in the delivery of services for addict gamblers and problem gamblers. They continue to be made to Amity Community Services and Anglicare in providing those gambling amelioration programs. But the rest of the fund, the balance of the fund, was frozen from July 1997.
Despite the review results being delivered in 1998, disbursements from the fund remained frozen. It was probably in that space of time that I raised several questions: where is the review? What is happening with the review? What is happening with the Community Benefit Fund? They were locked up, worse than Fort Knox, no one could get to it. Then suddenly, in March 2001, the former government decided to use part of the accumulated fund to make grants under the Small Grants Program to bona fide grassroots community groups. While the Auditor-General does not mention this fact, I will; the fact is the money just started to flow in an election year. And this is no coincidence, surely. It has been frozen all of this time, but suddenly someone has found the key. Someone has found the key and I do not believe that that is a coincidence.
Responsibility for determining grants, and no specific level on these grants were set, passed from the minister responsible at the time, the member for Daly, who had responsibility for Racing, Gaming and Licensing, to the Deputy Chief Minister, the member for Katherine and former Treasurer. The Auditor-General, unfortunately, did not report on why that decision was made. I remember asking that question in here, but to no avail. Now it is pretty fair, I think, to assume that in an election year the responsibility was passed to a more senior operative within the parliamentary wing of the CLP.
What else did the Auditor-General find? That, after initially setting the pool of grants to be distributed at $1m in March, on 16 July, barely a fortnight from the day the election was called, the former Treasurer upped the amount to close to $1.6m. You have to have some sympathy for the public servants who are left with carriage of this massive last ditch attempt to win votes prior to the election, because they had to process, in a short space of time, over 520 applications for grants with very few specific criteria. The Auditor-General states that there was a haste to process payments during July which meant, of course, the proper controls were not followed. There was a haste. So, there we are, a month to the election, the Country Liberal Party falling over themselves to process these payments and get ministers and sitting members out in the community, cheque in hand, of course.
According to the Auditor-General, they were so eager they overpaid some recipients. They even managed to pay five recipients twice. Five different groups were paid twice. Even more damning than that, two payments totalling $9000 were made to the Casuarina Security Association Inc, an organisation that was dormant and had a then government minister as its public officer. So, here we have the Country Liberal Party using taxpayers’ funds to pay a private organisation for which a government minister was the person to acquit the funds if ever such an acquittal was ever required. The Auditor-General goes on to say:
There was no indication that any check was made to ensure that the purpose of the grant was in accord with the basic
objectives of the Association.
Now, who authorised the grant? Who authorised the grant here? The same man, of course, who looked after the budget books. Or was it his senior ministerial officer who could authorise the payment of the money, as the member for Katherine, presumably, was too busy handing out cheques around about this time.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sanderson for his question. There were questions around this for quite some time prior to the last election, and try as I might as shadow minister for Racing and Gaming, whose ministry held responsibility for the Community Benefit Fund, it was never possible to get an answer from the then minister for Racing and Gaming, and certainly harder than trying to get blood out of a stone to get anything from the former Treasurer.
The Auditor-General has had a look at this whole question of the Community Benefit Fund, and his investigations have laid bare several quite serious concerns about the use of public monies under the former government. The Community Benefit Fund, for those who do not know, accumulated as a result of additional taxation levels on hotel poker machines following their introduction on 1 January 1996. Yet, barely 18 months after those machines were introduced into the community in July 1997, disbursements from the fund to community groups ceased - bearing in mind this was a fund for community benefit, that was its title, Community Benefit Fund - but disbursements ceased pending a review of the gaming industry. A small number of payments each year continue to be made to services involved in the delivery of services for addict gamblers and problem gamblers. They continue to be made to Amity Community Services and Anglicare in providing those gambling amelioration programs. But the rest of the fund, the balance of the fund, was frozen from July 1997.
Despite the review results being delivered in 1998, disbursements from the fund remained frozen. It was probably in that space of time that I raised several questions: where is the review? What is happening with the review? What is happening with the Community Benefit Fund? They were locked up, worse than Fort Knox, no one could get to it. Then suddenly, in March 2001, the former government decided to use part of the accumulated fund to make grants under the Small Grants Program to bona fide grassroots community groups. While the Auditor-General does not mention this fact, I will; the fact is the money just started to flow in an election year. And this is no coincidence, surely. It has been frozen all of this time, but suddenly someone has found the key. Someone has found the key and I do not believe that that is a coincidence.
Responsibility for determining grants, and no specific level on these grants were set, passed from the minister responsible at the time, the member for Daly, who had responsibility for Racing, Gaming and Licensing, to the Deputy Chief Minister, the member for Katherine and former Treasurer. The Auditor-General, unfortunately, did not report on why that decision was made. I remember asking that question in here, but to no avail. Now it is pretty fair, I think, to assume that in an election year the responsibility was passed to a more senior operative within the parliamentary wing of the CLP.
What else did the Auditor-General find? That, after initially setting the pool of grants to be distributed at $1m in March, on 16 July, barely a fortnight from the day the election was called, the former Treasurer upped the amount to close to $1.6m. You have to have some sympathy for the public servants who are left with carriage of this massive last ditch attempt to win votes prior to the election, because they had to process, in a short space of time, over 520 applications for grants with very few specific criteria. The Auditor-General states that there was a haste to process payments during July which meant, of course, the proper controls were not followed. There was a haste. So, there we are, a month to the election, the Country Liberal Party falling over themselves to process these payments and get ministers and sitting members out in the community, cheque in hand, of course.
According to the Auditor-General, they were so eager they overpaid some recipients. They even managed to pay five recipients twice. Five different groups were paid twice. Even more damning than that, two payments totalling $9000 were made to the Casuarina Security Association Inc, an organisation that was dormant and had a then government minister as its public officer. So, here we have the Country Liberal Party using taxpayers’ funds to pay a private organisation for which a government minister was the person to acquit the funds if ever such an acquittal was ever required. The Auditor-General goes on to say:
There was no indication that any check was made to ensure that the purpose of the grant was in accord with the basic
objectives of the Association.
Now, who authorised the grant? Who authorised the grant here? The same man, of course, who looked after the budget books. Or was it his senior ministerial officer who could authorise the payment of the money, as the member for Katherine, presumably, was too busy handing out cheques around about this time.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016