Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, just two more quotes and then I would like to get to the substance of what is a very important issue in correcting our nation's finances. This one is important because it goes to the heart of process and how the former government functioned. As a consequence of this poor process there was clearly waste. The former health minister said:

In addition to the lack of Cabinet engagement on some big strategic calls, Cabinet was also misused by being asked to deal in enormous detail with material it could never hope to be fully across. This meant that many Ministers managed to be both frustrated about a lack of attention to some key areas as well as being exhausted by huge amounts of energy required on less significant matters.

Nicola Roxon went on to say:

There were some contentious issues—