Anne H. Toomey

A lot of these grants were awarded in the September and, of course, the election was just a few months later in the April.

But it's interesting because Anne Toomey, as you said, esteemed constitutional expert, she actually said that the Marrickville Golf Club was already a recipient of five federal grants from But again, no-one quite knew what the value was for taxpayers.

She's quite right to call it grey corruption because, as you said, 73% of these seats are Labor-held and it's not demonstrating a responsible use of taxpayers' money or even how it's actually going to help individual organisations.

And I'm sure that there are many other worthy organisations that happen to be in Liberal electorates that would have missed out.

Now, Haynes was right to raise a red flag over his integrity, given the grant was announced six months before his government had even set up a process to look at the funding.

No less a legal authority than constitutional expert Professor Anne Toomey labelled the $560 million program as grey corruption in her evidence to the parliamentary inquiry that began today.

But as much as this exposes the Prime Minister's hypocrisy over Haynes, it goes to much deeper things.

It speaks about both his character and the ideological bent of modern Labor.

You were in the Senate inquiry today.

It kicked off, obviously, into the $560 million grants program.

And we heard evidence on the back of that submission, of course, from Anne Toomey calling it grey corruption.

I mean, she went into sort of quite significant constitutional detail about all the ways in which she would regard this as completely illegal.

Helen Haynes was right to raise the integrity around the decision in relation to the Marrickville Golf Club.

No less than constitutional legal expert Anne Toomey has raised this in a committee process, in her legal submission to a Senate inquiry.

If the Prime Minister wants the temperature turned down or taken down, how about he starts in his own backyard? And while he's at it, he must urgently review now the security for every MP, every single MP, not just himself and his ministers with the luxury of 24-7 police protection, every MP.

And end the games too, once and for all, where he cuts the staff entitlement of his opponents, but for himself, he's got the highest number of staff of any Prime Minister in Australian history.

... uh, historians, uh, Leanne Lane.

They've all written about a m- a lot of different women, and Anne Toomey from Cork.

Uh-

Yeah, because there was a w- around the time of the, the 1916 commemoration, there was uproar that the women's voices-

Who would've thunk? [laughs] God.

Um, I'm gonna replay you an interview I did with a constitutional lawyer, um, Anne Toomey, about speaking of, uh, cost of living, uh, these gray areas of corruption of, uh, awarding all sorts of dough to the Marrickville Golf Club and everybody else.

It's a interesting concept.

Yeah, pork barreling, yes.

And by the way, for those who said that you should also get David Flint on, yes, we will.

Uh, this week, he's also a very well-respected and renowned constitutional lawyer about, uh, how much our governments, uh, with an S on the end, actually stick to the Constitution as intended by our forefathers.

But, uh, Anne Toomey in a tick.

[upbeat music] In the Australian newspaper yesterday, Professor Anne Toomey was accusing the Albanese government of gray corruption for this grant scheme.

This is a complicated subject, so if you would like to know more, I highly recommend the video, Can Treaties Expand Commonwealth Power? by the Constitutional Clarion.

Professor Anne Toomey has a lot of great videos about the Constitution and high court cases.

So if you want to get deeper into like the constitutional elements of things, go subscribe to her, go watch her videos.

Anyway, back to things that increase federal power.

What is the process you followed? We've been waiting now for some weeks.

The government has put out statements and they've been analysed by people like Professor Anne Toomey, who's a constitutional law

expert.

And she's quite convinced, I think, that... that they did not follow a proper process here.

So once there's something you can attach to it, it becomes real for people and they're wondering what's going on here.

And you've got this constitutional expert, Anne Toomey, saying it is grey corruption.

And she's chosen her words carefully because I noticed today there are ministers and others saying, well, it's all been done within the rules.

That's fine.