Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 45:04 to 46:42
Minister McAllister explains the $147.8 million funding allocation for COP-related events and the process of reprioritizing existing funds.
Topics: Government spending, Climate change
Speakers: Hon Murray Watt, Speaker 8
>> Thanks, chair. I perhaps minister um you could help me cuz I'm just interested in understanding how preop was actually funded. Um my understanding that it was fully the costs were fully met from a rep prioritization of funding from the strategic international partnerships Do do you mind uh just running me through uh how that how that works?
>> Yeah, that's correct, Senator Brown. Just a couple of things. Um the funding for preop uh was drawn from an overall allocation by this government for COP related events. Uh that overall allocation and this is on the public record already is $147.8 million. As I say, that's not the that's not just for preop. That's for COP related events in general. And the funding for this came from that bucket of funds.
>> So what was that figure again? Sorry.
>> 147.8. 8 million. But to your point, Senator Brown, you're correct. The cost of pre-OP uh was fully funded um by savings generated by this government uh out of a $500 million coalition era program known as the strategic international partnership investment stream. Um now this was essentially um a program that was invented by then Minister Taylor, Angus Taylor. um as the energy minister um to persuade the Pacific to overlook the fact that under the former government we were consistently voting Australia was