Page 3093 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 October 2022
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MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (4.36): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 3128]. This amendment seeks to end the $41 million public subsidy promised by the ACT government to the horseracing industry under the 2022 MOU.
The ACT Greens oppose public funding for the horseracing industry. We understand that a sudden cut will affect the workers and the animals, so I propose that we phase out public funds for the horseracing industry by 20 per cent each year over the next five years. The current MOU pledges around $8 million to the horseracing industry this year. My amendment would return 20 per cent of that the budget, which is $1.6 million. This would still mean an income of at least $6 million to the horseracing industry this year.
The Greens oppose this MOU—we have been really clear on that right throughout—but I do want to stop and acknowledge some of the positive aspects in this MOU. The current MOU is a massive improvement on previous MOUs. It has been made public. I thank the minister for this. It is a really good transparency measure. Government grants, contracts and the budget are all public documents, and I am pleased that this 2022 MOU is also public. You can download it from a website.
The 2013 and 2017 MOUs were not public. Few people knew they existed. Even fewer knew the amounts, the terms and what the government were actually getting for this money. The past funding amounts are extremely hard to find. Of the past eight budgets, I found only one that clearly sets out the funds given to the horseracing industry. I think that in other years the budget funding was in consolidated funds and it was not separately identified. We certainly could not find it, and we looked. Those past MOUs were not public, so you could not simply look at the deals themselves. I recently obtained partial access to those past MOUs under FOI. I am hoping to get full access next week, but so far a third party has objected.
As a result of this forensic research—the current FOI, which is public; the partial MOUs that I obtained under FOI; and one budget reference in the past eight years—I have managed to piece together the funding situation. It looks like, since 2013, over $100 million of taxpayer funds has been spent or pledged to the racing industry. That is $100 million with almost no public scrutiny. It did not run through the usual grant or procurement processes that most of our funding goes through. It was done with very little public knowledge. Few knew the amounts or the details, and it is impossible to quantify the actual benefit or the outputs that the public got from that money.
Why does it matter? Without transparency and scrutiny, we do not have accountability. We cannot see that our money is being spent in the public interest. That is why we have FOI legislation. FOI promotes the open discussion of public affairs. It enhances government accountability. It contributes to informed debate. It ensures effective oversight of public expenditure. So I am really, really pleased that the government have done the right thing with this MOU. They have simply published it. No-one will need to trawl through multiple budgets, seeking line items that simply are not there. No-one needs to lodge an FOI request, have partial release and have third-party objections. Everyone can see how their public funds will be spent.
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