Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to her answer to my question yesterday, where she refused to commit to funding Brisbane’s flood affected infrastructure without more information. Does she agree with the comments of Brisbane’s lord mayor today:

The Prime Minister can’t have it both ways. On one hand she had enough information to set a flood levy but on the other hand she claims she doesn’t have enough information to spend it.

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

I thank the member for her question and I indicate now that I will seek to deal with this matter at the appropriate time for the making of personal explanations. What I said yesterday is what I stand by, and what I stand by is that I spoke to the lord mayor a number of weeks ago in Brisbane during the flooding crisis. I have spoken to him today and I have, on all occasions, made very clear to him that we will work with his council to rebuild. I have also made clear to him that I will not commit the funding of the Commonwealth using less information than he would view as appropriate if he was making a funding decision sitting at his council as lord mayor.

I know the member has sat on that council. I accept that the lord mayor would have sat with her and other councillors and made a wide variety of funding decisions. They would have done that on the basis of information. They would have done it on the basis of likely costs. So I am not taking an approach less rigorous in making decisions about federal government funds than the lord mayor would take approaching his own decision. He would expect to know what the amount is.

As it is, the lord mayor indicated to me today that he cannot fully cost the amount yet. He has, following that conversation, sent me a letter with some preliminary figures. In the interests of fiscal rigour, I would obviously not work on the basis of such preliminary figures. We will continue to work through proper processes.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well scrap the NBN, then—scrap the NBN if you’ve got any guts. You’re a disgrace. You’re a joke.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to 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.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We’re waiting for accurate information too, Julia.