CATHERINE KING MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR
INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
MEMBER FOR BALLARAT
ANDREW GILES MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CITIES AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP
MEMBER FOR SCULLIN
Minister Fletcher has failed to address serious concerns about the Morrison-Joyce Government’s $660 million Commuter Car Park Fund, better known as car park rorts, where programs were selected on the basis of a secret spreadsheet of marginal seats before the last election.
Astonishingly, yesterday the Minister claimed ‘we have been very transparent in relation to the car park program’.
With this attitude, it’s no wonder we are no closer to a federal anti-corruption watchdog more than a thousand days after Mr Morrison promised one.
The same Mr Morrison who was up to his neck in car park rorts, but who refuses to answer questions about his involvement.
Requests for documents, including the spreadsheet we know was the basis for project selection, have been repeatedly rejected.
Mr Fletcher should have a close look at the dictionary definition of transparency.
If the projects were actually selected based on evidence, Minister Fletcher wouldn’t be doing everything in his power to suppress the decision-making documents – and he wouldn’t keep changing his answers on why these rorts occurred.
He should also check his facts in relation to this program - because yesterday he misled Australians in several important respects.
Minister Fletcher claimed the Victorian Government had not made any commitments to build commuter car parking in Melbourne’s South East.
However, the Victorian Government had committed to building car parking for commuters in at least seven stations in Melbourne’s South and East in 2018 alone.
He also claimed the Morrison-Joyce Government was getting on with delivering these car parks - but fewer than one in five of the car parks promised have commenced construction, two and a half years after they were announced.
The Morrison-Joyce Government may be hopeless at getting on with building commuter car parks, but Minister Fletcher keeps digging himself into a hole attempting to defend the indefensible.
And we will get to the bottom of this, including through the Senate Inquiry now underway.
But what’s clear here is that under the Morrison-Joyce Government there is no regard for transparency, accountability or proper public administration.
To fix this, Australia needs a real National Anti-Corruption Commission - which only an Albanese Labor Government will deliver.