Senator MACKAY (3:21 PM) —Despite the somewhat risible attitude of Senator McGauran, this is a very serious issue. What we have here today is $200,000 of taxpayers' money being spent for essentially party political research. It is the case that it was raised in estimates, and I was the one who raised it in estimates. The reality is that the response I got completely disguised the nature of this report when it finally came to light. I would like to at some stage include in the Hansard the relevant estimates section which described exactly what this research project was supposed to be. Nowhere did it actually say that it was going to the nature of party political voting intentions—nowhere.

What I also found very interesting is Senator Ian Macdonald, who is not known for his veracity, not known for his capacity to answer questions, not known for his honesty—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Mackay, I think you had better withdraw that.

Senator MACKAY —I withdraw. He is not known for his capacity to answer questions anywhere except when it is a dorothy dixer, when he has it written out. He never answers questions in estimates. Senator McGauran knows this. That is why rural and regional estimates hearings go so long. What is interesting is that in the House of Representatives the Deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the National Party, was asked whether he was aware of this report and he said, `No, I have not seen it.' What does this mean? Does this mean Minister Macdonald has actually got the report which he admitted he had today—and in fact he had a brief—and he has not advised Minister Anderson? That is a bit strange. Anyway, the key points of it have permeated through the coalition's election policy. We see the amount of money being poured into Gwydir not just in Roads to Recovery, or `Roads to National Party recovery', but in relation to a whole lot of other things as well. This Minister Macdonald—who has become somewhat of a joke, I have to say, not only on this side of politics—also said that he had released the report. Wrong. He has not released the report. Yet again he has come in here and misled the Senate—deliberately misled the Senate. He has not released the report.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order!

Senator Coonan —Madam Deputy President, I raise a point of order. The senator should withdraw that remark.

Senator MACKAY —I withdraw. He has somewhat disingenuously, and potentially inadvertently, misled the Senate by saying that he has released the report. Senator Macdonald seems to have a difficulty in terms of long-term memory, but the reality is we did traverse this considerably in estimates. I will be getting advice in relation to the responses of the public servants, because I do not think they knew about it either. I do not think they understood it either. This is not unusual for this minister. The reality is—and a number of us have been in politics for a very long time—when you do not have a very good minister you just give him a very limited brief and say, `For goodness sake, don't answer any questions.' If you want to be competent in estimates you actually have to have a degree of acuity; you actually have to have some degree of perspicacity. Neither of these attributes can be attributed to Senator Macdonald.

In the time remaining to me, let me turn briefly to some of the issues that were raised in this $200,000 Quantum research. Senator Faulkner has already talked about the federal voting intentions in Queensland; it is quite explicit in relation to this. We also have the quote that we used today: a reference to Jeff Kennett realising too late that his credentials were not very good in rural and regional Australia. I do not think that is an appropriate use of taxpayers' funds. We have also got—and this is extraordinary; this is what the government spent $200,000 on:

This government spent $200,000 for that! You could stop anybody in regional Australia where you come from, Madam Deputy President, and they would be able to tell you that, but this government spent $200,000 of taxpayers' money finding out the bleeding obvious. Further, Minister Macdonald did not give this information to Minister Anderson. Now, I know relationships are not terrific between the two ministers, but I would have thought that on something that was relevant to rural and regional Australia he might have slipped him a copy. But he did not. I repeat what Senator Faulkner said: this is a disgrace and I call on the government to publicly table this.