Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

One good thing about the honourable senator's question was that she delivered it with a broad smile—in other words, she was not serious about the question. As a relative newcomer to this place, can I indicate to the honourable senator she does not have to accept those sorts of questions from the question committee that will only humiliate her. As I recall, the honourable senator was once the Chief Minister of a territory and she would well know that one does not divulge that which may or may not be on cabinet agendas. And therefore for her as the Chief Minister to seek to assert that we as a federal government should do that, which she never did, would be highly inappropriate.

The assumptions on which the honourable senator based her questions are not based on fact. Once again, I would simply say to the honourable senator and the Labor Party: do not base your questions on some of the gossip columns that are in our new daily newspapers. The Australian people expect us as a national parliament not to deal with these sorts of silly issues of whether or not something was a fundraiser or not. They want to know about jobs, they want to know about national security, they want to know about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, they want to know about the free-trade agreements that will deliver jobs well into the future and they want to know about the Medical Research Fund that really provides a vision for the scientific community and research community in our country. They are the sorts of things that excite the Australian people. They are the sorts of things that this government is getting ahead with, and we will not indulge in this sort of gossip.