Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) and the Minister for Employment Participation (Senator Arbib) to questions without notice asked by opposition senators.

This government continues to duck for cover and refuses to take responsibility for its serious failures with the Home Insulation Program. Earlier this week I asked the Minister for Employment Participation, Senator Arbib, when he first became aware of the safety issues for workers involved in the rushed and failed Home Insulation Program and he refused to answer. Today Senator Abetz asked the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, representing the Prime Minister, whether he would be able to ask the Prime Minister to get that information. The Prime Minister tells us that he is responsible and that the buck stops with him. Senator Evans, in relation to Senator Arbib, just glibly suggested, ‘Why don’t you ask him a question?’ So I asked Senator Arbib a second time: ‘When did you, Minister, first become aware of the serious safety issues for workers involved in the failed Home Insulation Program?’ Again he was very disciplined and very focused in giving us a lot of propaganda but he did not answer the core question: when was he, as the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery, as Mr Stimulus himself, first made aware of the serious safety issues for workers involved in the failed Home Insulation Program? To this day we do not have an answer. I can only hope that Senator Evans will take his commitment to this chamber seriously and raise the matter with the Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister will be true to his word—that he is responsible—and will get the information from Minister Arbib that we continue to be unable to get from him in this chamber.

When he was appointed as the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery he was Mr Stimulus. He was going to be the one who was going to be responsible for all the jobs out there. He was out there bragging about every single job that was created. He was telling us, in speech after speech, what a wonderful program it was. But now that things are going pear shaped, he is running for cover.