McKenzie concerned grants program was 'invite only'

0:00Richard McKenzie is a shadow minister for infrastructure and transport and shadow minister for regional development, local government and territories. And Joyce, me now, Senator, there's a lot there. A welcome back to breakfast. Great to be with you, Sally. Now, some of this is of interest to you, and particularly we're just hearing from Andrew Chalton there on honorary memberships of local organisations. You lost your portfolio several years ago regarding a gun club in your electorate, which also received funding. What did you think of what Andrew Chalton had to say there? Well, I thought that was a very interesting response. As you know, Sally, I resigned my ministerial portfolio because of a perceived conflict of interest. I had an honorary membership that I didn't know I had from a gun club that I decided under the guidelines to award funding to. So women and disabled members could actually go to the toilet on site, $36,000 grant. So I have been very surprised by the story today of the ABCs that the Prime Minister has

1:08held an honorary membership to a golf club in his electorate that received a $6 million grant in a grant program that was closed, non-competitive. And we're only one golf club out of the 1600 golf clubs across the country was invited to participate. And I don't know what guidelines Andrew was quoting from, but I've got the code of conduct for ministers that the Prime Minister himself has signed the forward for, talking about high ethical standards for his ministers and his government. And in part three, it goes directly to conflicts of interest. Ministers must declare and register their personal interest, including but not limited to pecuniary interests. So that means whether you get a financial benefit from it or not. And so if you do hold an honorary membership of a local club, you need to declare that so that when it receives funding as this golf club in Marickville did, the public is very

2:15clear of that you've taken steps to deal with that potential and perceived or actual conflict of interest in the awarding of funding. What do you think of all this unfolding now? I think the parliament must do its job where all, when you see trust eroding across the public in parliament, in parliamentarians, in the political class, it's beholden on all of us to actually uphold the system that we're a part of. So I can only speak for myself, I chose to resign. You didn't have a lot of choice. Well I did actually, I could have been sacked, Sally, and I chose to resign because when I sat down with the ministerial code of conduct, it was clear there was a perceived conflict of interest and I handed in my resignation upheld my own personal integrity, but also importantly the integrity of the system. I'm concerned I'm going to be the last minister in this Westminster system to actually take

3:17personal responsibility. Unlike this grant program, the one I administered was competitive, open and the guidelines were clear that the minister had the decision making what's concerning about this grant program and I know you've been running the 730 report on this, is it was closed, it was invite only and it seems through an FOI we did that the finalist actually ran through the Prime Minister's own department before it was handed to Catherine King for administration. So there are a lot of questions about the administration of over half a billion dollars of tax pay as money. Let's talk about digital duty of care, the government unveiled its proposed digital duty of care laws yesterday. In your view, is it a good idea to force tech companies to ask Australians if they want to opt out of the online algorithms? I think it's important that Australians have choice. I also am concerned about the amount of harmful materials such as pornography being able

4:24to be accessed particularly by underage Australians, young people, in particular we've seen the horrific impact of that in our communities over the recent weeks even. So something does need to be done there and parents have a role in ensuring their children don't have access to this material. But I do think it is concerning from what I've seen of the exposure draft that there seems this open power being given to the minister for communications to basically say shut down alternative views. We've seen even last week Jim Charmer's complaining about social media algorithms for the criticism his own government is getting over their tax changes. That's not harmful material, Mr Charmers, that's actually fact. And so I am very concerned that this can be used by government. I don't like handing powers over to ministers that aren't responsible to the parliament

5:29or the people. The Shadow Communications Minister, your colleague Sarah Henderson says the current draft is quite an absolute threat to free speech. Earlier this morning we spoke to Mayor Bannister who lost her son Oli to suicide at 14 and asked her about these concerns. Let's take a listen. I don't think it curves the right to anyone's free speech or anything like that. It actually gives you the choice. It gives you the choice as to whether you want to be fed those algorithmic feeds or whether you don't want to be fed them. It's pretty simple. What do you make of that? Well, I think it's a tragedy and it's happening all too often. And we've saying it not just with young men but young women over time. And I'm very concerned that parents don't have enough tools at their disposal to actually shut this stuff down. So we need to make it much easier for parents to have a say in what their children can

6:29actually see online. But there needs to be protections in this legislation for free speech. The UK has done that in their recent legislation. So yes, we have to protect people from harm. But handing ministers open-ended powers is not the solution. So I think this has got a lot more to play before we can get it right. Times against us just briefly, in principle, do you think the bill can be fixed so that the coalition can support it or it's not even close? Well, I think they're coming it from the wrong angle that giving unlimited powers to a minister to somehow solve this, a minister that's failed to protect children with the social media ban for the under 16. That was supposed to be the great panacea. It's not. So I don't actually trust this government to get it right. They're great at the ban ahead lines and making everyone feel like they're going to change society and domestic violence in a generation. You name it. They're going to solve it. The reality of making that happen is much more challenging and they're not being honest

7:30about that challenge. Bridget McKenzie, thank you very much for joining me again in the studio this morning. I appreciate it.