Mal Brough (Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot, to be honest, give you an adequate answer to that off the top of my head. I would like to see the seven so that we can take them up and find out if there is a systemic issue in an office or whether it is broader. If it is, then we would bring that to Senator Ellison’s attention to deal with. As you said, his staff are very professional and are trying to deal with these sorts of issues. When you are dealing with 600,000-odd people with disability pensions these days, things can and often do go awry. You do have to be aware that we are trying to protect the public purse but to do it in such a way as to be sensitive. Sometimes that balance, as you have indicated—and luckily Senator Ellison’s office was able to fix it—is not always where it should be. We would always take those issues up. If they are more systemic, we will see what we can do to deal with them.

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