Labor is demanding parliamentary hearings into a commuter car park program which has been savaged as an industrial scale rort.
A scathing Auditor-General’s report has found the federal Coalition scheme was not effective or merit-based.
Not one of the 47 commuter car park sites promised by the Coalition at the 2019 election was selected by the infrastructure department.
At least $660 million was allocated to hand-picked projects in Liberal-held or marginal seats.
Labor and Greens senators on Thursday called for the Transport and Regional Affairs Committee to hold extra estimates hearings to probe the fund.
Nationals Senator Susan McDonald, who chairs the committee, said the request would be considered.
“It is a long-standing convention that matters and business of committees are not discussed publicly,” she told AAP.
“Given that the media has received the application before I had, then this will be a matter that is also considered at the next private meeting of the committee.”
Labor’s urban infrastructure spokesman Andrew Giles accused Scott Morrison of going into hiding because of the program.
“The Prime Minister needs to urgently address this scandal, explain what went on in the meeting and release his secret project spreadsheets,” he said.
“The government clearly hopes that if they ignore this scandal it will all go away.”
Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher has defended the politically skewed pre-election cash splash.
“The process we went through was that ministers, elected officials, made decisions about the delivery of infrastructure projects,” he said earlier in the week.
“The great majority of these projects we took to the 2019 election, and so we came to government with the authority of an election.”
Only 11 per cent of the promised sites had started construction by March this year.
Just two of the car parks have been completed.
The program follows a similar pattern to other schemes administered by the Morrison Government.
These include the sports rorts scandal, female change room fund and Better Regions Scheme.
AAP
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