Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I have a number of follow-up questions. Clearly, it is unsustainable for the government to assert that no error has been made. When the legislative framework on which they are relying has not passed the parliament, to suggest that they are not pre-empting is in fact incorrect. Either this document pre-empts the passing of that legislation, and is wrong on the current structure of the legislative framework in this country, or it reflects current practice. You cannot have it both ways, I would have thought. The appropriation bills should match up with the UEFO, and if this, rather than a mistake, was the explanation one would have anticipated a footnote at the very least in relation to the UEFO to explain this.

It seems passing strange that Senator Sherry told us that the legislation somehow had been carried and came into effect on 1 January this year but that there is now another bill around the place that we still have to pass. I am not sure where that fits in, but given that this is a government that knows everything and never makes mistakes I will simply put on record that any objective observer of this document in comparison to the appropriation bills will see that there is an error in the documentation. But, of course, Mr Rudd and the new regime are not willing to make any acknowledgement that they might be fallible.

I refer the minister to page 67 of the UEFO and ask whether there is some new intergovernmental agreement that is about to be legislated which would explain the $97 million for 2009-10 on that page under the heading ‘Nation Building and Jobs Plan—Single Income Family Bonus—One-off Lump Sum Payment of $950 per FTB-B Family’.