Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Johnston laughs. The Commonwealth government itself has acknowledged that its education programs were underspent by $126 million in 2004-05. What do we see on the weekend? A massive assault on the states, run in every newspaper in the country and based on the housing ministers conference on Friday, with regard to the states’ performance on underspending. It is really the pot calling the kettle black. We have a situation here where the underspend on Indigenous programs is totally unjustified. It is unjustified for the states and it is unjustified for the Commonwealth. This Commonwealth government has a pitiful record in that regard. Senator Scullion likes to blame the Labor government of the Northern Territory. I can recall that it was only a few years ago that here in this chamber and in Senate estimates I was able to highlight that the amount of money that the Liberal-National Party government, the doormats in the National Party, were actually arguing for 48—