Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

To assist the parliamentary secretary with his answer on my initial questions concerning the commandeering of two RAAF refuelling planes, I would refer to the answer he attempted to give before in which he said that they needed two planes so that they could take journalists. I would tell him that the configuration of each plane is a first-class chamber for ministers and then a business class compartment for journalists and then a bedroom for the Prime Minister—and this is duplicated. So your answer was misleading and it tried to imply that I in fact was not caring about the safety of those people, which was quite unwarranted.

I want to go now to page 284 of Budget Paper No. 2, One National Circuit—adjustment for leasing expenses. It says:

The Government will provide $4.4 million over five years for office lease expenses of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to ensure compliance with accounting standards.

I would like to know what precisely is the purpose of the lease. Is this an additional $4.4 million? What is the overall cost of the lease? How many people will be housed in those premises and who is the landlord?

I would also like to ask you about page 117 of Budget Paper No. 2, Tackling climate change—renewable energy target. I notice that the government is abolishing the energy target established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and is transferring it to the Climate Change portfolio. We have already seen that the very efficient rebate system the Howard government put in place for solar panels has been chopped because it was successful. John Howard said that it would be a demand-driven program and anyone could get the subsidy for the solar panels who wanted to do so because the aim was to get as many residences set up with solar panels as possible. Now I see that the responsibility for renewable energy target, which was established by John Howard within Prime Minister and Cabinet, has been shifted out of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Is this another indication that, although the target has been raised and there is a statement that the amount of money would increase to $15.5 million, you are claiming a saving of over $12 million by taking it out of Prime Minister and Cabinet? What is the nature of the intent, and why has it been taken out of Prime Minister and Cabinet? The last question that I will ask of you concerns the COAG process and the additional funds that are being made available to COAG. Do you have specific details of how that additional money is meant to translate into, supposedly, ending the blame game?

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