Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

The parliamentary secretary did attempt to answer some of the questions that I raised about PM&C, but there were three that he noteworthily left out. One of the most important of those is the enhanced strategic capacity for the department, where $38.1 million plus $1 million for capital funding—so almost $40 million—has been set aside for a new item which we are told is to advise the Prime Minister and cabinet on enhanced strategic capacity. Having been here 15 years, this sounds to me like a very busy empty log into which $40 million has been stashed to be used as the government wishes to campaign against the opposition at election time—out of PM&C. We would like some specifics about this new enhanced strategic capacity of almost $40 million. He also completely ignored the issue of the $5.2 million to establish a new Office of National Security. He ignored the $7.9 million for the Office of Work and Family. What are these offices? What resources of other departments are going to be provided to these offices? Are they coordinating the re-election campaign of the Rudd government in, we assume, 2010? In particular, what about the enhanced strategic capacity, which the parliamentary secretary has totally ignored? That is a massive spending of taxpayers’ money. We would like the details of the numbers of people involved; what exactly they will be doing and what level they will be paid at?

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