Mr NAIRN(7.35 p.m.) —I would like to briefly speak on two matters tonight. The first is to comment on the Senate decision last night in regard to the unfair dismissal law and to say what an outrageous, disgraceful decision that was by the Labor Party and the Democrats. Today in question time it was raised, and the matter of their knowledge of small business was thrown around the chamber. The reaction from the other side was quite incredible when you think about it. I sat there and I looked down the list of the people sitting on the front bench, and I thought, `Well, it is probably no surprise that they do not really understand small business and they do not really understand what we are about and how important this particular amendment is to the very small businesses.' I looked along the front bench. I will not name them but I wrote them down. If I look along the front bench of the other side, I see the first person: background, union politics; second person: background, teacher union—

Mr Rocher —Name them.

Mr NAIRN —You know where they sit; starting from the left and moving along. Third person, Public Service; fourth person, union; fifth person, union; sixth, union; seventh, academic; next, academic politics; the next, Public Service; union; union politics; union politics; union politics; Public Service politics; union politics; union politics; academic. That is the front bench of the other side. No wonder they have got no understanding of why it is important to get the sort of change that we wanted. Certainly all the small businesses in Eden-Monaro from the chambers of commerce that I have been going to over the last couple of months are quite incredible in what they say about industrial relations and the fact that the Labor Party and the Democrats do not understand. I am encouraging all those businesses to put it in writing and tell these people why this has to change. But I do not hold out any hope, I am afraid. When you look at that sort of background on the front bench, they would not have a clue.

The other matter I want to speak on in the adjournment debate tonight relates to answers to questions on notice in the back of yesterday's Hansard. The first couple of questions are very interesting. The first two questions were from the member for Werriwa, Mr Latham. The first relates to the cost of running the Lodge and Kirribilli House. The second relates to the cost of running the office of the Prime Minister (Mr Howard)—the staff, staff travel, car allowances. Given it has been a pretty topical thing in the last few weeks around the country, I thought it was quite interesting.

Clearly, the member for Werriwa thought that he was being quite smart in asking these questions. He thought that he was going to expose some enormous expenditure because the Prime Minister has his base in Sydney—even though we all know that the Prime Minister has to be where the Prime Minister is and he would probably spend just as much time in Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and wherever else he is required to be. It is quite irrelevant when it comes to cost.

The expenditure is rather interesting. The Prime Minister in answer gave a comparison between the first full year of the coalition government and the last full year of the Keating government. The recurrent funding is the main one, but we will give all the costs. The total cost of the operations of the Lodge and Kirribilli House in the first full year of the Howard government was $3.434 million. In the last full year of the Keating government it was $3.74 million. So it is over $300,000 more.

The recurrent funding is probably more typical for comparison. Under the Howard government it was $2.969 million as opposed to Keating's $3.613 million. They are the chardonnay socialists—the Bollinger Bolsheviks, as somebody said.

If you look also at the staff costs and staff travel—those opposite supposedly would make merry hell of all of these things—you will find that the total cost of travel for staff under the Keating government in his last year was $312,000 as opposed to $151,000 under the Howard government.

Mr Lloyd —Half.

Mr NAIRN —Half. In this current year, the total for the Howard government for a particular period of time was $500,000 and $760,000 for the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Beazley). (Time expired)