Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Lyons was then concerned that a complaint about the elements of an online story about Michaelia Cash was based on supposition rather than journalistic fact. So, when we look at who is complaining—and I haven't gone into all of the Labor Party complaints about bias in the ABC—and who the vexatious litigants are in this House, it is the Labor Party. What you didn't hear from the Leader of the Opposition and what you didn't hear from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was any explanation of why the Labor Party, when they were last in office, protected the ABC from the efficiency dividend that they set for the federal government. They excluded the ABC from the efficiency dividend. They said, 'Only the ABC in the entire federal government is efficient.' Does anyone in this House believe that there are no efficiencies to be found in a billion-dollar organisation? Can any one of you look us in the eye and say that our defence department, which protects our country and serves our nation, should find an efficiency but the ABC should not? 'Yes!' the members opposite say. So our soldiers should be more efficient, but the state funded journalists should not be more efficient. It is a completely nonsensical argument for a well-funded organisation like the ABC.

This government brings to this parliament and to the community the right approach to government—which is that all departments should find efficiencies, where those efficiencies exist; that we should live within our means; and that we should reduce our spending. We set an efficiency dividend for the ABC. We said, 'We're going to pause your indexation,' which is the basis of the claims that the ABC funding is being cut. It's not a real cut, but a pause in indexation. That's what's going on. What does the ABC say to that? Well, no, again, they are a paragon of government virtue: there are no efficiencies to be found within the ABC. Only the ABC. You couldn't find a dollar. You couldn't find a dime. You couldn't make anything better or improved or more efficient or get better value for money.

That is the opposition's approach to government. That is why, when they're in government, they fail—because they are spending your money. They are spending the money of the Australian people. For the Labor Party to come in here—for Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, and for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to come in here—and go all nostalgic on us and say, 'When I was a kid I used to love this organisation, and therefore I'm going to spare them from any efficiency dividends, when our soldiers have to find efficiencies.' is false, is wrong, and the Labor Party have no shame.

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