Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Hansard source

I have not seen that comment, but I have to say that, knowing the form of Senator Cormann, I am not going to take anything he says as gospel. I would certainly like to see the context, because the one thing we know about Senator Cormann is that he takes things out of context every day. I would have to see it before I would be happy to answer a question like that.

Over the past three days I have answered numerous questions about my role. I am again happy to put on record that my roles were to maximise job opportunities and to ensure the timely rollout of the stimulus package. As I have informed the Senate, when I became the Parliamentary Secretary for Government Service Delivery, I—along with the Coordinator-General, Mike Mrdak—met a few times with ministerial officers from departments that were responsible for delivering an element of the stimulus package. These meetings were designed to ensure strong reporting and lines of communication between Commonwealth agencies and state governments and to provide feedback between agencies, state governments and ministerial offices to ensure that the rollout of the stimulus was proceeding smoothly and on time. That is the role that I was playing. I would not be taking the words of Senator Cormann without actually seeing the document that he is quoting from.