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November 4, 2024
The Coalition has accused the Albanese government of a "social cohesion rort", funnelling taxpayer funds to organisations in its own electorates to shore up its atrisk heartlands ahead of next year's election.
But Labor has labelled the accusation "ridiculous", saying the grant process for the government's social cohesion funding was boundary blind and had gone to the most relevant Palestinian and Muslim community organisations.
It comes ahead of a Monday Senate estimates hearing and after more than $1.5m in funding was revealed to have been given to an organisation whose employee, Sheik Ibrahim Dadoun, called October 7 a "day of courage" and who recently vowed that "Islam would dominate".
The Liberals have criticised how 80 per cent of organisations that shared a recent $30m social cohesion grant package $25m and a second $5m tranche as part of emergency funding to support Palestinian and Muslim communities had gone to groups based in Labor-held seats, with analysis of the figures showing 21 of the 27 grant recipients were in the ALP's divisions, many of which are focus electorates for "anti-Labor" organised Muslim political campaigns.
The remaining six grants have gone to three recipients in Liberal-held seats and three divisions represented by the Greens or independents.
A separate $25m funding tranche to support the Jewish community was given to the country's peak body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella organisation of about 200 organisations, to distribute.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the government had been "caught out funnelling" taxpayer funds to prop up its at-risk MPs amid The Muslim Vote and Muslim Votes Matter political campaigns targeting its heartlands.
"Australia's fractured social cohesion is too serious an issue to be used for vote buying, but that's what the government is clearly doing," he said, adding that it couldn't be a "coincidence".
"Electoral bribery won't help tackle record anti-Semitism, especially when some of the groups receiving the funds have engaged in their own extremist rhetoric since 7 October."
The Australian previously has reported how the United Muslims of Australia had received about $1.6m in recent funding despite employee Sheik Dadoun's October 7 attacks comments and recent addresses at events orchestrated by Hizb ut-Tahrir. A UMA spokesman previously told The Australian the organisation's objective "was to bring communities together under shared values with a focus on serving the community in Australia".
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has said the UMA had a long history working with government and Assistant Multicultural Affairs Minister Julian Hill previously has said political leaders had "repeatedly condemned" Sheik Dadoun's comments.
Mr Hill also rejected the premise that the scheme was electioneering, saying the process was electorate blind and recipients did important community work.
"Even from the mob that gave Australians sports rorts, carpark rorts and secret colour-coded spreadsheets this is a ridiculous accusation," he said.
"Absolutely no consideration has been given to electorate boundaries in allocating any social cohesion funding, whether to Australian Muslim, Christian, Palestinian, Jewish or any other communities affected by the horrific conflict in the Middle East."
Funding also has gone to leading and large organisations such as the Lebanese Muslim Association, which works closely with governments and whose services extend far across the community.
Those with knowledge of the process also pointed to the geographical facts on the ground, with Labor-held seats having larger Muslim communities than the Liberals', and by default homing that community's main organisations and social services.
