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

Can I say to the member, on the comparison she makes with the levy, what an absurd comparison. What I said when I announced the $5.6 billion funding package is that we were making room for $5.6 billion, it was against what we knew then about damage, we would make more available as necessary, we needed to find ways to fund it and in order to do that we would make room in the Commonwealth budget through cuts and reprioritising and deferrals and we would ask Australians to make a contribution. That is what I said when I announced the levy. That is what I stand by.

I presume it is the position of the member that Brisbane City Council should be treated generously. Well, if she believes that then she has to step up to the political responsibility of saying, ‘How do you fund it?’ She sits on the backbenches of a political party with no idea about how to do it. Last time they tried to touch budget questions they engaged in an $11 billion black hole, and of course the funding package they have announced is so shaky, so despicable, that even the Deputy Leader of the Opposition does not endorse it.

I would also say to the member who asked me the question, who knows her community well: how is it she campaigned in that community at the last election advocating the paying of a $6 billion levy and now she is not prepared to go to that community and support a levy to rebuild the community? I think community members are going to be asking her some very difficult questions about that. On the question of Brisbane City Council, I await the accurate information.

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