Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. I refer to the grant of $10,000 made by the former government to the Sikh Mission Centre to purchase new equipment for the community. Why is the government ignoring the needs of multicultural communities with its cuts and forcing them to face the Abbott axe?

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I indicated to the honourable member who asked the question—and indeed all honourable members of the chamber—that where contracts have not been executed, in the light of the Bowen black hole that we inherited, we will do what a prudent and sensible government would do and that is that we will review all of those matters. Can I repeat to her that, because matters have been promised in the context of an election campaign by the Labor Party, that does not mean that we have to honour those agreements. But certainly the situation where we have got a $200 billion net debt, where we have a Labor Party that could not deliver a surplus for the whole of its six years in government, and now have to do something about it, then in all of those circumstances—and ask about as many of these grants as you like, the answer will be in exactly the same—we will act prudently and that means that we will review all of those matters.