Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

You know that!

Senator Patrick interjecting—

Well, I've made our position clear. We do support greater funding for the Auditor-General. In government, we gave them more, and I as finance minister accepted the importance of funding that entity—unlike this gentleman and unlike his predecessor. So the government should do the right thing. They've managed to undermine so many of the democratic principles and conventions that go to accountability. They ought not undermine the Auditor-General by depriving him of funding to do work that is important. I'm happy to keep making that ask of the government. I'm happy to continue to campaign for it. Most importantly, we will continue to campaign for a Labor government that recognises the importance of this sort of accountability.