Audit into Labor disability funding grants

THE auditor-general is to investigate disability service grants which the opposition says were skewed towards Labor and Greens electorates.

Auditor-General Ian McPhee has begun a performance audit into the $60 million Supported Accommodation Innovation Fund.

The investigation was sparked by a complaint from Liberal MP Jamie Briggs, who says that four grants went to coalition-held seats, compared with 35 to Labor-held seats and seven to the seat of Melbourne held by Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt.

"This funding was supposed to help people in need of supported accommodation, not Labor members of parliament trying to hold onto their seats at the next election," Mr Briggs said.

"The coalition is not questioning the merits of any individual project or the successful organisations, just the process followed by the government."

Mr Briggs said while he welcomed the audit, the government needed to explain the anomaly immediately.

Mr McPhee said in his letter to Mr Briggs that the audit would focus on the advice given by the department to the minister and the distribution of money, including the way in which the merits of competing applications were considered.

The SAIF, announced by the Labor government in April 2012, was set up to deliver 150 new accommodation places for people with a disability.

Comment was being sought from the parliamentary secretary for disabilities Senator Jan McLucas.

However, it is understood the figures cited by Mr Briggs related to head offices of organisations, and the accommodation itself was divided into 17 Labor seats and nine Liberal-National seats.

Senator McLucas said an exhaustive process produced a "merit list" from which the successful grant recipients were taken.

"Selection criteria were developed to cover a range of important aspects including innovation and quality, experience, and governance," she told AAP.

"The assessment process included a technical score related to the responses to the selection criteria, a value for money assessment and risk assessments of financial and organisational capacity."

Advice was taken from an independent probity expert and capital works specialist.

A total of 21 organisations were responsible for 27 projects, providing 169 new supported accommodation and respite places across the country.

Of these, 17 projects are being built in seats held by ALP members, nine in Liberal or Nationals-held seats, and one site is to be confirmed.

The coalition's figures were based on head office location and not where the accommodation is being built.

The applicants also needed to show they had secured long-term funding from other sources to manage the accommodation.

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Oppn audit goes further than Swan plan

THE federal opposition says its proposed commission of audit and other processes will go further than Treasurer Wayne Swan's new policy costing plan.

Mr Swan proposed on Friday that the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) provide, 30 days after the September election, a detailed report on the costings of all parties' policies.

He says the independent report would ensure the coalition would be "caught out" if they try to fudge their costing figures.

However, shadow assistant treasurer Senator Matthias Cormann told AAP on Friday Mr Swan's effort to turn up the heat on the coalition was "laughable".

"Wayne Swan couldn't turn up the heat on a barbecue let alone over coalition policy costings," Senator Cormann said.

He said the coalition was committed to increased transparency of policy costings post-election because "unlike the Labor Party we have nothing to fear from it".

"We will stick to our timetable and to our methodical and structured processes when it comes to the release of our costings pre-election and to ensure we have cut all the Labor waste out of the budget post-election," he said.

"Obviously the job of the commission of audit is much broader than what Wayne Swan has announced as part of his latest bit of political spin today."

Senator Cormann said the coalition had had a large number of policies costed by the PBO to date and would submit more over the next few months.

"Obviously we can't make final judgments on our pre-election costings until we know what the true position of the budget is, which we won't know until Treasury and Finance have released the pre-election fiscal outlook (PEFO)," he said.

"Given Wayne Swan's past untrustworthy performance, no reasonable person could expect us to rely on his budget numbers to finalise our pre-election costings."

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