Dominic Perrottet has defended his role in the New South Wales government’s allocation of Black Summer recovery grants after the federal emergency management minister, Murray Watt, accused him of being part of a “rorting” process that saw money funnelled away from Labor electorates.
The allegations were made after a national emergency management agency official told Senate estimates this week that they understood the grants went to the NSW cabinet’s expenditure review committee (ECR) before being finalised.
The $100m grants scheme was lashed a scathing auditor general’s report released earlier this month that found then deputy premier John Barilaro’s office created new rules for it that effectively saw Labor electorates miss out entirely on the immediate relief.
The official told estimates the national emergency management agency was made aware of the changes “after the fact”.
“We weren’t aware at the time of releasing or agreeing that the funds would be released to the NSW government,” the official said.
“My understanding is that the decision to finalise projects also had to go through the NSW cabinet process.”
Watt said this showed the government, including the premier, who was at the time the head of ERC, was “up to its neck” in the scheme.
“This went right to the heart of the NSW government,” he said.
“That is an absolutely disgraceful way to treat bushfire victims in their hour of need.”
Asked about his role on Tuesday, Perrottet said he was unsure whether any change to the bushfire funding was discussed at a meeting of the government’s ERC.
He said Watt’s comments showed a “complete misunderstanding” of how the government’s expenditure review committee operated.
“I chaired the expenditure review committee for over five years. You set envelopes based on Treasury advice in relation to grant funding programs [and] ultimately, it’s ministers who are responsible for the allocation,” he said.
When asked specifically whether changes to the grants were rubber-stamped by the ERC, Perrottet said he was unsure.
“I have to check, we have expenditure review committees regularly [and] you’re going back a number of years,” he said.
“What I can say is that ERC acts on Treasury advice in relation to grant programs. It is the role of the minister [to] make determinations in relation to that allocation.”
The premier also faced questions over Treasury analysis released on Monday that he insisted showed Labor’s plan to scrap the controversial public sector wage cap would cost the budget $8bn.
The modelling was based on an analysis of the cost of increasing public sector wages in line with inflation, which Labor denies it intends to do.
But the release of the modelling prompted questions after the Treasury issued a statement saying it had not modelled Labor’s policy, which led to the shadow treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, criticising the government for what he called an “appalling” piece of “misinformation”.
“It shows how desperate this 12-year-old government is to distract from the shortage of critical workers in our essential services,” he said.
Perrottet defended the modelling, saying it was based on “factual scenarios”.
“Why is Labor so scared of the facts? They’re scared of the facts because they know they have a secret wages policy that will wreak havoc on the NSW budget and ensure that the schools, the hospitals, the ride, the rail infrastructure cannot be built,” he said.
The issue also increased speculation about the government’s own plans for future privatisation, after Perrottet repeatedly refused to rule out such a move.
At a function in Sydney’s west on Tuesday, the transport minister, retiring MP David Elliott, further fed that speculation when he said that while the government had “no plans” for such moves, “that’s not to say privatisation won’t occur”.
