Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question and note that it is based on the normal level of research the opposition does for question time. That is, they get out the newspapers, have a little read of them, spot an article, get out the scissors, clip it out and then bring it in and base the question on it. It is an act of pure genius that they are capable of reading the newspapers. I do not want to deny the shadow Treasurer an answer to his question based on his cut and paste, so the answer is as follows: the Minister for Trade attended a meeting of senior departmental staff of his department on 10 May in Canberra. He spoke to those staff and addressed a range of policy issues. As part of those remarks I understand that the minister urged the officials of his department to engage more closely with other departments and become more active in the policy development process and that is a good thing.

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