Today marks four years since the Liberals’ Tasmanian sports rorts scandal was broken by the ABC, but still the government has failed to move on key reforms recommended by the Integrity Commission.
In April 2022, the Integrity Commission released a landmark report about inappropriate use of $21 million in pork barrel promises by the Liberals during the 2018 election. The report found these grant commitments did not meet the principles of accountability, fairness, or openness and recommended significant legislative and regulatory change to prevent pork barrelling – a misuse of public funds.
Just a fortnight after the Integrity Commission made these important findings about the 2018 election, investigative work by the Greens and ABC exposed the Liberals’ conduct in the 2021 campaign was even worse. Reporting and Right to Information requests across subsequent months revealed astounding layers of egregious conduct by the Liberals and Liberal MPs.
People across Australia were appalled by the national sports rorts saga, but integrity experts described what the Liberals did in the 2021 Tasmanian election as an “extreme version” of that scandal. That’s because many campaign promises were never publicly announced, some were directly linked to personal interests of Liberal MPs, and dozens were secretly funded through an appalling misuse of the Treasurer’s Reserve. A Minister even had to apologise after being fed false information by the Liberals and misleading Parliament as a result.
Despite the Integrity Commissions clear calls for reform, and the public outrage over the Liberals’ conduct, four years on and still there has been no action taken by the government to prevent pork barrelling. Instead they’ve just kept doubling down – driving the budget deeper and deeper into the red.
Looking back at the past four years, it’s not just the inaction on banning pork barrelling that is troubling. In all this time, nobody has been held accountable for this flagrant misuse of taxpayer money, nor the shameless attempts to cover it up.
How is it that MPs have arranged huge sums of taxpayer funds to be awarded to clubs where they have a direct personal interest, and still they have faced no consequences?
Four years is already far too long. It’s time for the Liberals to finally commit to adopting the Integrity Commission’s anti-pork barrelling recommendations, and to close the legal loophole that allows MPs to escape accountability for splurging public money to buy votes.
