Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Mr and Mrs Thomsen were advised earlier today, here at Parliament House, by the department that about 40 payments totalling $4 million have been paid under the scheme and that the scheme is winding up. Can the minister confirm that this amount of $4 million has been paid, and that some $20 million was spent on the royal commission? Does the government not see the irony in the royal commission costing many times more than the payments made to the victims today?