Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16598. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour):I thought for a minute Mr Deputy Speaker that you were going to give the member Jacqui Dean an extension of time but we are all gratified that you managed to stop her in her tracks.Phil Twyford: On humanitarian grounds.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Yes it was a humanitarian gesture on your part Mr Deputy Speaker and I thank you for that. That was the member of course who did not know what H2O was. She comes from a province that needs a lot of that substance but she did not quite know what it was when she was written to.The Budget Policy Statement deals as it says with allocations of funds to a variety of Government departments including—as you are aware Mr Deputy Speaker because Mr Parker and Mr Mallard alluded to it—the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It is interesting that the previous member referenced Judith Collins because we have had a couple of very very serious days in this Parliament. Nothing cuts to the heart of a democracy more than questions over the credibility and integrity of a Minister questions over the credibility and integrity of the Prime Minister and questions over the credibility and integrity of statements and advice that is provided from the Cabinet Office. This all goes Mr Deputy Speaker to moneys allocated of course to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and moneys allocated to Ministerial Services including of course the Minister of Justice’s own office.Judith Collins has made a bit of history today. I think that she could be labelled the “Minister of Cronies”. We know that cronyism is rife in this Government. It gets extremely dangerous and extremely serious when Ministers and others put themselves either deliberately or through a lack of judgment and through negligence in positions where not only their own credibility and integrity can be questioned but also that of a Government.These questions cannot be answered because of course the Prime Minister who has slipped and slid all over this issue day after day will not release Cabinet advice. We found out today and I know there is a quote from the Minister of Justice’s stand-up today where she effectively said when asked why she did not provide this information to the media when she was questioned in previous days: “Oh because I answered the questions I was asked.”—“I answered the questions I was asked.”That might be sort of tricky stuff of course because you have got the Prime Minister—well funded of course by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet—who has continual brain fades continual amnesia and who came down to the House today had all this advice and then said: “I can’t remember what I did because I don’t have the advice.” Then of course we have Judith Collins who said: “I answered only the questions I was asked.” That might be—might be; it probably is not—a pretty low standard even for question time in this place but when journalists and others are asking you direct questions and you answer only the questions that you are asked there is a word for that. I will not use it in this place but it shows an absolute lack of integrity on behalf of that politician and that Minister—absolute lack of integrity.Even with all the money that is allocated to that Minister’s office and to the press secretary who stood behind her taping every word so that she can go back and check what she said she cannot get her story straight. She is the “Minister of Cronies” and she is not the only one. When you look around this Government you have John Banks—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Come back to the debate.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Yes well all these things are funded through the Budget Policy Statement. John Banks may well end up looking through striped sunshine and the allocation ironically—ironically—through the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Corrections programme may well put him there. It may well put him there because the allocation to the High Court judges of course comes through the Ministry of Justice via this document and others and it may well be that John Banks on his third potential conviction—he has already got two of course—may end up looking through striped sunshine.That is the first rotten foundation followed by Peter Dunne who cannot tell us whether he leaked a document or not. Again that document and the ramifications around it were funded through a Government allocation of funds as represented in the Budget Policy Statement. Then of course we have Judith Collins. She did not look so happy today did she? She did not look so arrogant and full of herself today did she? She has been found out and found out in the worst possible way because she has slipped and slid and would not answer questions.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.