Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I do not think that I indicated to the chamber that the process was flawed. The process of consultation, we believe, was flawed, and there could have been more timely consultation provided by the previous government.

The previous government had already factored the $835 billion worth of savings into the forward estimates. What we were up against coming to this legislation was that that had already been done. I think the Australian people clearly understand the very difficult economic circumstances which the nation is in. We had to take into account the fact that the previous government had factored in $835 billion worth of savings, and we had to take that fact into account. We will take a different approach to consultation. On our coming to government there were very comprehensive consultations done with the stakeholders by the government.