Government Bill doesn't come close to ending pork barrelling

The first Bill to tackle grants reform in NSW is welcome, but fails to implement key recommendations promised during the Labor party’s election campaign.

The Government Sector Finance (Grants) Amendment Bill 2023, passing Parliament tonight, legislates only the second recommendation published in the ICAC Operation Jersey report into pork-barrelling in NSW.

The legislation reinforces a commitment to the Grants Assessment Guidelines and introduces a new clause that the “Minister must not approve expenditure on grants unless satisfied that the expenditure would be an efficient, effective, economic and ethical use of the money and that the expenditure represents value for money.” However, these slight changes go nowhere near upholding the dozens of recommendations provided by ICAC, the 2022 final report by the Public Accountability Committee and the final report in the review into Grants Administration in NSW by Premier and Cabinet.

Greens NSW Spokesperson for Treasury and Finance, Abigail Boyd said:

“There’s no doubt that this Bill from the new Labor Government is a refreshing change after a decade of rorts and scandals, but ending dodgy grants will take more than one short piece of legislation.

“A few small legislative changes will not come close to ending the culture of pork-barrelling, rorts and misspending of public money that has become the norm in NSW politics.

“The rulebook for grants administration in NSW will still be determined by the Government, without any input from Parliament. This ignores the very first recommendation by ICAC to end pork-barrelling.

“The government should consider themselves warned that, should they fail to uphold their promise and continue working on ensuring the integrity of the grants administration scheme, we have our own Bill that we are ready and willing to bring on.

“Years of pork-barrelling have produced years of investigations and recommendations. We must see the Government implement those recommendations or we risk a repeat of the biased spending that was prolific under the last Coalition Government.

“Exposing and ending pork-barrelling has always been core business for the Greens. For now, we are trusting this new Government to go further to uphold their election commitments in more comprehensive legislation before the end of the year.”

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

Will you sign?

First Name

Last Name

Mobile phone

Address (Street, Suburb, State, Postcode)

Country

I want to volunteer

Join with Facebook

Join with Twitter

Government Bill doesn't come close to ending pork barrelling

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

Will you sign?

Join the Campaign

Join 50,216 other supporters in taking action