Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister
LIAM BARTLETT, HOST: I wanted to talk about the Federal Government and the budget from the Federal Treasurer, I beg your pardon, coming up tomorrow, tomorrow afternoon, Perth time. But I can confirm something for you today ahead of the official release tomorrow. Now, the Finance Minister, Katy Gallagher, has been trawling through a list of government grants made under Scott Morrison and has reportedly identified up to $2 billion in projects promised, in her words, as an attempt to win votes by politicising grants funds. So, under the heading of not being valued for money, she has put the acts to them, $2 billion worth, except one of those grants here in WA that we asked questions of on this program about five weeks ago, has finally, I’m very pleased to say, being given the green light. You may remember we wanted to know why a $3 million grant that was promised way back in 2018 to the Floreat Athena Football Club, originally put forward by a One Nation senator, in fact, had still not been honoured. Now, what we can tell you is that the Member for Perth and Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman, who promised to look into this, can now confirm the grant. Patrick, a very good morning to you.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Liam, and good morning to your listeners.
BARTLETT: And good news for Florida Athena, Patrick,
GORMAN: This is good news for 82 projects that are in a similar bucket to the experience that Floreat Athena have had, which is that they were promised as way back as 2016 or 2018 and nothing happened. What the Minister has announced today is that for a range of projects, 82 of them, including Litis Stadium, that where Floreat Athena play and have some good successes on the field, that we will give an extra six months for them to reach a final contract agreement with the Department of Infrastructure so they can get building. We’ve gone through a proper process examining all of these grants to make sure that we balance the need to repair that trillion dollars of debt that’s been left by the former Liberal government, but also show due respect and treat clubs and councils who have been going through years and years of bureaucracy to try and help get these things finalised.
BARTLETT: Yes, well, plenty of repairs needed down at the Litis Stadium, the old Lake Monger Velodrome. So is that the only conditions that they face on this money? They have to have the contracts in place within the next six months?
GORMAN: Well, of course, they have to comply with all of the conditions that normally apply to any release of taxpayer funds from the Commonwealth. And as was highlighted when we spoke to your program, there had been quite a bit of work done between the City of Vincent, the club and indeed the Commonwealth. So, I’m quite confident that they will reach that final contract within the next six months so that we can stop talking about doing and get on with building.
BARTLETT: Yes, that’s great. That’s great news. Whose arm did you have to twist?
GORMAN: I’m really pleased, like I said, that the 82 projects that fall into a similar category. I was very clear on your program. I’ve been very clear with the council and the club that I didn’t want to go and ask for special treatment for my electorate. It was important that these projects were dealt with on their merits and that’s exactly what’s happened.
But I should also tell your listeners, that we will be closing the grants program within which this existed. What was known as the Community Development Grants Program, run by the former government, did not treat all clubs fairly. It was a so called grants program, but organisations had no ability to apply for it. And that’s just wrong.
BARTLETT: Okay, so no more applications in that category.
GORMAN: Not through that program. That program will end. The Community Development Grants program will end because it wasn’t one that all clubs could apply to. And what I want for my electorate, the electorate of Perth, as you mentioned the Commonwealth Games Velodrome, we’ve got so many ageing infrastructure assets for our sporting clubs. I want them all to be able to apply in a fair and transparent way for competitive grants. And that’s where we’re going to shift to in the future. But as we shift those policy settings to have a more accountable regime than what the previous government had, which indeed left us with this trillion dollars of debt, we’re going to make sure that we help those clubs which have done all of that work, and indeed councils have done all of that work, to finalise these outstanding projects.
BARTLETT: Patrick, thanks very much for joining us this morning.
GORMAN: Thank you, Liam.
BARTLETT: Patrick Gorman there. The Member for Perth.
