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

There was no humiliating backdown, so once again we can dismiss the Labor Party rhetoric. The only backdown that has occurred is in fact that the Labor Party that stopped funding for this program as of June 2015 now, all of a sudden, want to be the champions of it, after we restored the funding on page 88 of Budget Paper No. 2 in the last budget. We restored the funding. We provided the funding for a program that, out of the mouth of the leader of the opposition in this place today, we have heard, was a lapsing program—a program that the Labor Party thought was so unnecessary it could simply lapse. And today they come in here pretending to be the champions of NCRIS! Labor's actions in government speak so much louder than their words in opposition. (Time expired)