Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I called him 'Minister'. I will call him Minister. I said 'the government minister at the table'. I'm really not sure what you're on about right now, Deputy Speaker, but I said 'the government minister at the table'.

They're always happy to take the free trip, but they're not happy to stand up and champion foreign aid and to speak out against the cuts. Ultimately this is a leadership project. There are no votes in aid. We all know that there are no votes in aid. If anything, you go out and preach this stuff and people think you have the wrong priorities. That's the truth of it. But it's a leadership project. We do it because it's right, we do it because it's in the interests of our region and we do it because it's in our national interest. It should shame government members that they're not in here speaking out against the cuts or pushing the government to reverse some of these cuts. It doesn't matter how much you review the program. If you don't put more money in it, it's not going to work.

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