Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

seriously. As I said, I will not be verballed. I will continue to provide information through question time, even if I have to get my own side of the chamber to ask me questions. I will continue every day, as I invariably do, to provide to the Senate information of my own volition, without any encouragement, inducement or incentive from Senator McLucas.

The second point that I will make is that the accreditation agency is an independent agency. I as the minister cannot direct an agency, and nor will I attempt to. And God help the aged-care sector should you ever become—through you, Mr Temporary Chairman—aged-care minister, with the interventionist tendencies that you have just displayed here. The sector is terrified. In my consultations, what the sector tells me, Mr Temporary Chairman, is that they fear the interventionist dispositions that you display towards the sector, to the point where those interventionist dispositions cannot lead to the advancement of the welfare of the people in care.

I will circulate this; do not try to beat me, because I will circulate—