Tuesday, 17 February 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:10): (2317) In a week where we are speaking a lot on corruption, my adjournment matter is on a matter that I consider to be, if not overt corruption, certainly an area of grey corruption that the state should be concerned about. My action is for the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, and it relates to the SRL community grants program. About 18 months ago I raised in this house the concern that that program was being administered in a corrupt way, that it did not pertain specifically to matters of the SRL development, that it was used to effectively pork barrel electorates, that it imposed upon the recipients of the grants a requirement for them to sign an NDA and that it imposed a requirement that they not disparage the SRL and that members of the government must come along and attend the openings and be given special privileges.

The latest round of SRL grants was just recently opened, and in my view, it was opened in perfect timing so that the announcement of the grants after assessment would be at the start of this year’s election campaign. Those grants will be branded SRL grants. Those grants will no doubt have the same NDA requirements and no doubt have government people coming and doing the announcement. Now, to me, this is corrupt. This is absolutely wrong and inappropriate.

The action I seek from the minister is not to deny my community the grants. I think my community needs these grants, but it should be the local member who delivers these grants if they are justified. The action I want is for the whole community grant program run under the SRL to be moved to an independent body and to be unbranded and uninhibited by the de facto requirement to endorse the SRL by doing so, so that it is not in itself compromised and so that the people receiving these grants do not have their hands tied in expressing their honest opinions about a keynote government policy.

As it is, we have a fund of $300 million that is focused to go into electorates within my greater electorate. It is not right. It is clearly grey corruption. It is clearly open for abuse. The actual process by which they approved these grants last time took 30 minutes, which means it took less than a minute per grant to approve them. So the process is not there either. The action I seek is that the entire SRL community grants program be moved to an independent, unbranded body that has full accountability and transparency.