Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Australia has the highest per capita rate of asbestos disease in the world. Forty thousand Australians are expected to die from asbestos. There are reports that the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency is to be axed. Does the Prime Minister agree with Senator Cormann that this agency is 'window dressing' and that it is misused for PR purposes? And why does this Prime Minister go out of his way to make life hard for asbestos victims?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We put up with a lot of argument in the questions from the opposition, but I think that trying to drag asbestosis sufferers into that is really beneath the Leader of the Opposition. I would ask him to rephrase the question so that the argument is removed from the question.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If it helps, I am happy to rephrase the question, Madam Speaker.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, it would help.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not an argument: Australia has the highest per capita incidence of asbestos in the world. It is not an argument that 40,000 people will die from asbestos. It is not an argument that finance minister Cormann has called the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency 'window-dressing' and misused for PR purposes. None of this is argument, Prime Minister. Prime Minister, why are you allowing the axing of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has not been axed: it is as simple as that—it has not been axed.

I do reject the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition—an unworthy suggestion, if I may say so—that this government or, indeed, myself as prime minister, are uninterested in this. Obviously, we want to do the right thing—

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The question has been asked. The member for Rankin is warned!

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by all people who are suffering, including people who are suffering the dreadful diseases that come from exposure to asbestos.

Without wanting to, as it were, blow my own trumpet, when I was the health minister I did establish a national research centre for research into this terrible disease. So I simply say to the Leader of the Opposition: before he gets into the politics of smear, check the facts.