Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the minister’s previous answer to the question from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, when he was asked about the budget for the government’s industrial relations PR campaign, that the budget was a matter for departments. I refer to the government’s own website which refers to the guidelines governing the operation of the Ministerial Committee for Government Communications, which is the committee that the minister chairs, where it states that the committee must adhere to the guidelines and that those guidelines include ‘calculations based on value for money’. How can the minister stand at the dispatch box and tell us he has no responsibility for considering budgets for such a campaign when plainly his guidelines require him to do so? Minister, will you stand at the dispatch box and simply tell the parliament how much the budget is for this campaign?

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