Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to withdraw. What I should have said is that it is a trifle inconsistent on a professional basis from those opposite when they say, 'Well, the member for Maribyrnong contacted Telstra a number of times and insisted on finding out what was going on, and Telstra said they had it under control'. When he has become the minister—when I have become the minister—we have acted on the review, which was initiated by my predecessors. And we are the first government ever to act; we are the first government to put in an asbestos agency. We have moved very quickly when we were notified of the problems—and our Comcare regulator has been there in the last six to eight weeks as complaints have come in.

But on this startling idea for those opposite, who have never paid attention to asbestos generally—although there are a few notable exceptions opposite, I should be fair—in 2006 Mr McGauran, the then member for Gippsland, responded to the late member for Calare, Mr Andren, when he was asked a number of questions about asbestos, and the then government, the coalition government of short memory, went through it and said, 'Yes, the Telstra network'—this is at point 2 in the Hansard, which the opposition did not bother getting out because they like to pretend that this discovery about Telstra is new—

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