Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee

Steph Hodgins-May

I seek leave to amend business of the Senate notice of motion No. 4.

Leave granted.

I move the motion as amended:

That the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 18 November 2026:

The administration of the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program including:

(a) program design, guidelines, funding criteria and eligibility requirements;

(b) the processes for identifying, inviting, assessing and selecting applicants;

(c) the role of the offices of the Prime Minister and other relevant ministers or members of Parliament in determining which organisations were invited to apply, which grants were awarded and who would announce successful grants;

(d) the role of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts in identifying and recommending which organisations were invited to apply;

(e) the geographic and electoral distribution of grants;

(f) any actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest involving ministers, members of Parliament and applicants or grant recipients, or breaches of the Code of Conduct for Ministers; and

(g) any other related matters.

Katy Gallagher

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Slade Brockman

Leave is granted for one minute.

Katy Gallagher

The government was happy to support this motion with two amendments. One was to remove the part on breaches of the code of conduct for ministers, because it's not up to committees to determine whether a code of conduct has been breached, and the other was to have inserted into the motion advice from previous Auditor-General's reports which specifically goes to the issue of how to handle the delivery of election commitments. We had agreement with the Greens around that amendment until, unfortunately, Senator Hodgins-May determined that she would rather reach agreement with the Liberals on this and refused to withdraw the code-of-conduct part. So I just want to make it clear that the government was keen to support this motion until we were unable to get those minor amendments—minor but important amendments—to this committee referral.

Slade Brockman

The question is that business of the Senate motion No. 4 moved by Senator Hodgins-May, as amended, be agreed to.