Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The $150 million of which I was talking is exactly the money we made available to provide for the funding of those 1,700 scientists who, under the Labor Party regime, would have been sacked as of 1 July this year. Nobody was held hostage. What we as a government said was that, if you make a new policy proposal as a government, you have to have financial offsets. We had one offset that has been offered. That has not been accepted. There are now other offsets that will be made. (Time expired)