Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have just a quick question. In the conversations that have been had at estimates since the arrival of the Abbott government and in the period of the Turnbull government, one of the questions that we have constantly asked is about what was happening with the distribution of funding, and the response that we got from the government over and over again was that to call on the states to account for the money that the federal government was providing to them was to increase red tape. It was a particularly frustrating response to receive. It was not seen as accountability at all to have the states account for the money. If people are interested in this, they could look at the Hansard and they will see Senator Ryan, representing Minister Pyne, and Mr Cook, as the acting head of the department, saying over and over and over again that the sort of thing that is now being proposed in this amendment was red tape. What has changed, Minister?