Senator MACKAY (3:53 PM) —by leave—I will not take up a lot of the Senate's time with this, but as it deals with a member of my staff I feel that I should set the record straight. I refer to some comments made by Minister Macdonald today, on the say-so of Senator Abetz, as to inquiries made by my office to Senator Abetz's office in relation to the status of rural transaction centres in Tasmania. I want to absolutely clarify what happened here, because it relates to a member of my staff, not me. This is the first time I have done this since I came here in 1996.

The departmental web site was unavailable and I was due to do an interview in Tasmania on rural transaction centres, so I asked a member of my staff to ring a government senator. I said, `Ring Senator Abetz's office. He is in the south. That is where I understand the new rural transaction centres are going to be.' She did that. There was no intention at all on her part or on my part to hide the fact that she came from my office. To be honest with you, if you were going to do that, why would you ask for some information that was already available on the public record and refer to the fact that the web site was down and therefore unavailable? What we were attempting to do was get the facts. I think it is a sad day when one senator's office cannot ring another senator's office to check facts that relate to government policy without having it raised in question time. I think it is typical of Senator Abetz.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —A personal explanation is to explain where you have been misrepresented.

Senator MACKAY —I would suggest that in future Senator Macdonald, rather than taking Senator Abetz's say-so, should perhaps give me the courtesy of calling me in relation to it, given that it relates to a member of my staff, and be less reliant on Senator Abetz.