Nearly $7m previously earmarked for the royal commission into child sexual abuse has been redirected into the Abbott government's $20m inquiry into Labor's home insulation scheme.
The attorney general, George Brandis, had previously denied that funding for the insulation royal commission had been offset by cuts to any other royal commission.
Brandis told a parliamentary committee hearing in February he understood the funding for the insulation royal commission had been "absorbed by the department itself" and "no money has been taken away from anywhere else". But he vowed at the time to take the question on notice.
The formal answer provided to the Senate estimates committee shows the Attorney General's Department, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Industry each contributed $6.7m for the home insulation royal commission, while the Finance Department provided $1m.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/28/sex-abuse-royal-commission-funds-redirected-to-home-insulation-inquiry
Of course, the unthinkingly right-wing Catholic Abbott would want to do the best he could to help his mate Cardinal Pell out of the scandals of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Just like the Church and its covering-up though, the failure to follow through will cause more damage than the truth would.
And the insulation commission is all about getting Kevin Rudd, on whose watch the poorly-executed scheme was initiated. But Rudd has already accepted responsibility, as then Prime Minister, and nothing can alter the fact that those directly responsible were the shonky operators who failed to take proper safety precautions.The worst that can be said of the Rudd administration is that the scheme was too hastily organised, without proper organisation.
Four deaths are regrettable – but how do you balance that against tens of thousands of abused children, some of whom did take their own lives as a result, and many whose lives were shattered ever since?
Yet again, the instinctive reaction of the Libs is to lie, making a bad situation worse. If Abbott thinks the Australian public are going to accept this ugly little political exercise, he's sadly mistaken. Like everything he touches, the dirt will ultimately stick to him.
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