First comes the scandal, then comes the spin.
NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro has been up in parliament this morning defending his government’s handling of a $177 million bushfire relief fund.
The government has been accused of using the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery fund (BLER) to pork-barrel in its regional electorates. That includes handing $10 million to a multinational company controlled by one of the Coalition’s biggest donors, Anthony Pratt.
But Barilaro has another name for the waves of cash being handed to predominantly Coalition-held seats: investment.
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Barilaro told the inquiry that he was “sick to death” of the “mistruth that is spun in relation to this term, pork-barrelling”.
“What we call pork-barrelling is investment,” he said. “I dare you to turn up to these communities and tell them they don’t deserve these projects.”
Greens MP David Shoebridge and various Labor MPs have accused the government of politicising the fund.
According to one analysis, just $2.5 million out of the $177 million in first-round funding went to Labor-held seats with the rest flowing to Coalition seats and the tightly held independent seat of Wagga Wagga.
No money was allocated to projects in the Labor-held state seat of the Blue Mountains, which was the site of one of last year’s worst bushfires. It suffered an economic loss of $65 million, according to the government’s own estimates.
The Labor-held seat of Central Coast was also given no funding despite suffering an economic hit of $163 million.
Barilaro said there was “no conflict” in the fact that the government handed $10 million to Visy despite the company’s owner, Pratt, giving the government $1.5 million in political donations last financial year.
“Legal donations, regardless of where they go, [are] legal,” he said.
He said the government had reached out to Visy and other businesses that had been lobbying the government to alert them to the funding round which prioritised “shovel ready” projects.
“Since being minister of forestry, I’ve never had a conversation with Mr Pratt,” he said.
Barilaro said recipients of the bushfire funding had been identified by the National Bushfire Recovery Agency and signed off on by the federal government as well as the state government.
The funding also included $11 million for a skydiving business that had been twice rejected for government funding.
Barilaro was also asked about the scandal surrounding the NSW government’s handling of the $250 million Stronger Communities grants scheme, in which documents were shredded by the premier’s office.
He told the inquiry shredding documents “doesn’t give confidence to anyone”.
“We don’t do that in my office,” he said.
Apparently some things are harder to spin than others.
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I understood from ABC radio news this lunchtime that Barilaro said they allocated this round of funding according to the number of homes that had been lost in particular areas – eg many more homes lost in Eurobodalla than in the Blue Mountains. If grants went towards helping with the rebuilding of homes, that would make some sort of sense. But how does millions for Pratt and his business relate to that criterion? Seems as if Barilaro made it up as he went along.
No. Suspect he looked at the Polling Data for the last election and directed it where it would do Old Feralbinchicken and her Limired News Party mates the most good.
“I dare you to turn up to these communities and tell them they don’t deserve these projects.”
I dare Barilaro to turn up to the communities that missed out and tell them they didn’t deserve their projects as much as others did.
Yepp! Any excuse is a good excuse for this rotten mob, it has tsken a page out of Morrison and co with all it’s dirty underhanded dealings to duplicate it in N.S.W.
I bet if it had of been a Labor State the Murdoch Press along with Sky would have bern all over it.
They are skulking like whipped dogs in case it might offend there Master.
It is sad that unbiased reporting is so biased.
Also maybe the Libs ought to butt out of other States affairs as they have nothing to be proud of!
Too right DF, and same for the other grant programs that were pork-barrelled to infinity. Go to all those sports rorts regions that scored higher than others that were funded and still didn’t receive a cent, and explain why that happened.
It seems Eddie McGuire has got a new job already – adviser to Barilaro.
Are you serious?
What sort of commission is the NSW Coal-ition actually working on – for handing out these $tax to donors?
Then there’s the aspect of the dedication of $tax (sourced from Labor seat rubes as well) to buy votes to hold Coalition seats. Has “Porkies” Barilaro ever turned up to tell the truth?.
….How good is it watching our Labor-voter $tax, being creamed off, to go to buying Coalition votes/seats – so that our seats can go without, compared to LNP bottomless hand-out pits?
“Your Dollars At Work – for Coalition Politics”?
Gladys pork barrelled to and she said was ok, how the h*ll they do it and get away with it is beggars belief!
I reiterate what I said earlier about Murdoch Press and how the Master keeps those dogs on a leash in reporting it.
Is only Labor States they go after and half that information is misinformation
That’s the thing :-
When Labor does it (anything wrong) Rupert’s pack is sooled onto them, to pursue them, up hill and down dale, to tear their image apart/“hold them to account” : but when his Limited News Party does something similar Rupert’s hounds are are either kennelled, too tied up on other things, to get out and check it out; or else (when forced to recognise what all the other dogs are barking) compare their LNP’s errant behaviour to Labor examples – thus mitigating and lessening the bad look for their/his pet party.
Interfering with our political PR.
John Barilaro is being honest. Taxpayers money is being invested to improve the LNP’s election chances.