The Albanese Government is now engaging in outright corruption.
I recently moved a motion passed by the Senate that asked the government for the business case to justify spending $100 million on Avoca Rd, a road that leads to Albanese’s beach house.
The government replied that NSW had done the business case.
I then moved another motion passed by the Senate that asked for the documentation between the Federal and NSW State Government in regard to the funding of Avoca Road.
Catherine King the Infrastructure Minister replied:
“The release of correspondence relating to discussions between the Australian and NSW Governments on projects funded under the Infrastructure Investment Program (IIP) would constitute a risk to Commonwealth-State relations and therefore will not be provided as part of this request.”
(See documents in my Facebook post comments).
This is a disgrace and a slap in the face to the Senate who requested the Minister release the documents.
Furthermore it only lends credence to the view held by many that Albanese has done this to impress his new girlfriend.
If the business case was above board what has the Government got to hide.
Clearly Albanese has abused his power and needs to go.
Senate on 25/11/2024
DOCUMENTS
Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, Department of Education, Independent Review of Commonwealth Funding for Strategic Policy Work, Department of the Treasury, Avoca Drive Upgrade Project, Digital Transformation Agency, Order for the Production of Documents
Senator RENNICK (Queensland) (17:55): The first thing I will talk about is Avoca Drive. Last week the Senate asked the Albanese government for the business case, including colour-coded spreadsheets that justified the expenditure of $100 million for Avoca Drive. I know that the Labor Party take infrastructure spending very seriously, because when the Morrison government spent $30 million on acquiring the last piece of the Leppington Triangle, and that $30 million was spent on 30 acres of land—you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that one acre is worth $1 million, and one acre is about 4,044 square metres, or about 500 square-metre blocks. If you quickly do the sums you will realise that that was about was about paying about $12,500 for every 500 square metres of land. I don’t think there is anywhere in the Sydney basin that you could buy a block of land for that, yet the Labor Party was claiming that the Morrison government paid too much for the Leppington Triangle. That wasn’t the case for the reason I just laid out—there is nowhere in Sydney you can get 500 square metres of flat land for $12,500.
Having said that, the Leppington Triangle was for the Western Sydney airport, a critical piece of nation-building infrastructure that needed to be bought so we could finish the airport and get this country moving again. On the other hand, what we’ve got here is expenditure of $100 million—three times the amount of money spent on acquiring the last 30 acres needed for the Western Sydney airport—for Avoca Drive, which is a state road. It’s not a federal road. The now federal government—the then opposition—committed $30 million to that road on a fifty-fifty partnership with the New South Wales government at the last election, and then suddenly last year in January 2023 they have gone and allocated another $70 million. This piqued my interest because I know that the Morrison government was strewn over the coals for spending $30 million on the Western Sydney airport. I might add that my former colleague and still friend Senator Bridget McKenzie was strewn over the hot coals for her colour-coded spreadsheets, so I think it’s only fair that the Labor Party also provide their business case for spending $100 million on a state road, particularly the $70 million increase in funding that wasn’t matched by the New South Wales government.
I find it quite interesting that the federal government, when we’ve got a cost-of-living issue and a lot of constraints on the budgets can suddenly find $100 million for Avoca Road that does lead to Copacabana Beach—you can draw your own conclusions there. I’m very disappointed to say that the reply we got today from the Albanese Labor government was that the federal government did no business case whatsoever; they just suddenly decided to put another $70 million on top of the initial $30 million for a road based on a business case from the New South Wales government.
I’ve put in another notice of motion—it should appear tomorrow or the day after on the Notice Paper—for the production of all correspondence between the New South Wales government and the federal government. That’s because I want to know why the Albanese government decided to up the ante on this expenditure without getting a similar commitment from the New South Wales government. It seems odd to me that the New South Wales government would go to the federal government without being prepared to stump up their own money. Did the Albanese government go to the New South Wales government and say, ‘We need to build this road,’ and the New South Wales government turn around and say, ‘No, we don’t,’ or, ‘We only need to put in $30 million each’? Why did the Albanese Labor government decide to put an extra $70 million into this road that leads to Copacabana Beach and the very house that the Prime Minister recently bought?
There need to be answers on this issue and this funding, and we need to see the business case. I want to see the federal government’s business case. They claim they didn’t do one. Well, my question is: why didn’t the federal government do a business case? At the end of the day, it’s taxpayers’ money paid to the federal government, so the federal government should have a business case. They can’t just tick and flick on a New South Wales government business case, especially when the New South Wales government wasn’t prepared to put in more than $30 million. I think the Albanese Labor government needs to come clean—very, very clean—on this, because I’m starting to smell a bit of a whiff here.
