The office of Cabinet Secretary Alan Tudge kept a tracking sheet of the “top 20 marginal ranking” for commuter parking fund projects worth $ 660 million to marginal seats that the coalition will retain or retain in the 2019 election wanted to win, says the auditor.
Important points:
- 47 parking spaces were funded in a $ 660 million project that was deemed “ineffective” and not performance-based
- Auditors have told a Senate committee that the car park projects have been selected by coalition MPs and candidates in marginal constituencies
- The office of then Minister of Urban Infrastructure, Alan Tudge, kept a “Top 20 Rioting” chart to track projects as it courted MPs
Last month, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found that a $ 660 million fund to build 47 commuter parking spaces near train stations was not “performance-based” and none of the approved parking spaces had been proposed by the Department of Infrastructure was.
“The distribution of the projects selected reflected the geographic and political profile of those that the government had given the opportunity to identify candidates for funding,” said Auditor General Grant Hehir.
ANAO Auditor Brian Boyd told a Senate committee today that projects were identified through voting by Coalition MPs and candidates from late 2018 to April 2019, administered through the office of then City Infrastructure Secretary Alan Tudge.
“It was initially referred to as the ‘top 20 rampage’ … to touch the base with the top 20 rampage [representatives] – Either the member of the House of Representatives, the Senator on duty, or [their offices] – to ask them what projects in your electorate are worth going through this program? “Said Mr Boyd.
He said marginalized coalition candidates identified by the coalition were also asked about possible parking lot projects.
“In some cases, the evidence shows that the local member or senator on duty was actually dealing with the [Prime Minister’s Office]who then forwards it to the minister’s office, “Boyd said.
Mr Boyd said that decisions about building the parking lots were made on the basis of the electorate rather than traffic congestion.
“It started from a different direction. We can see that in some ways there was a constituency they were courting that we believe didn’t even have a train station,” Boyd said.
“So it was more like starting with the voters than: ‘Here are the routes and there is traffic jam … and that’s why we have to deal with that.
47 parking spaces identified by MPs and coalition candidates
Ultimately, 29 coalition-held or marginalized voters were recruited through what Mr Boyd called the “to-do list” of Minister Tudge’s “to-do list” of parking suggestions.
Liberal MP Alan Tudge’s office kept a list of marginal seats it wanted to keep or win to pursue proposals for parking projects ahead of the 2019 election. (
ABC News: Matt Roberts
)
Mr Boyd noted that, unlike the Sports Promotion Program, which used a color-coded table to highlight the party affiliation of the locations of public grant applications, the Parking Scheme is not a public process.
He said the infrastructure ministry, not just any ministerial office, had advised against an open, competitive process.
Infrastructure division deputy secretary David Hallinan told the committee that he had recommended a process of submitting proposals for possible parking spaces and then evaluating them by the division, but ultimately it was decided through the cabinet process that the government would select projects.
38 of the parking spaces were “determined by the Prime Minister’s written consent at the written request of the Ministers” and seven more were announced as election commitments, the ANAO found.
“The Prime Minister would ultimately write back to either Minister Tudge, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasury Secretary or the Treasurer saying, ‘I consented to these projects’ but he did so on the basis of letters from [ministers]”Said Mr. Boyd.
He said there was no evidence that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was personally involved in the search for parking suggestions.
ANAO confirmed to the committee that the entire $ 4.8 billion Urban Congestion Fund in which the parking garage fund resides lacks transparency and competitiveness.
