Senator JACINTA COLLINS (2:00 PM) —My question is to Senator Patterson, the Minister for Family and Community Services. Can the minister confirm that she provided the Prime Minister with a 62-page cabinet-in-confidence budget submission which outlines $436 million of further cuts to her portfolio and just $167 million of new spending, most of which is devoted to recycled proposals? Can the minister also confirm that her plan is to see cuts to her portfolio of more than $1 billion over two years?

Senator PATTERSON (Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women) —I can confirm that somebody has leaked a cabinet-in-confidence document, which I see as very serious and which breaks the Commonwealth law. I will not confirm the misinformation that Senator Jacinta Collins has just continued with. She carries on with the same old scaremongering that Mr Swan started. Mr Swan has no policies. All Mr Swan can do is scaremonger, misinform the Australian public and pass around half-truths. The Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions in the discussion about working age reform that pensions and allowances will not be cut.

We will not resile from doing everything to encourage people to participate in the work force. The Labor Party do not seem to understand that it is much better for people to have a job than for them to be on welfare. They had a million people unemployed and a million more people on welfare. We have created 1.3 million jobs. We now have more people in work than they could ever have dreamt of. When people are in work it gives them financial security, the opportunity of increasing their earnings, access to superannuation and now, because of Senator Coonan's measures, more access to contributing to superannuation. It does have an impact on the overall budget. Senator Jacinta Collins would not appreciate that increasing the number of people of working age in the work force by two per cent has a nine per cent impact on the budget, a $68 billion a year impact on the budget.

Senator Collins is not even listening. She is too busy getting excited about her supplementary question. She does not want to know that a two per cent increase in participation in the work force has a $68 billion impact on the whole of the social security budget—each year, twice what it is for health and four times the Commonwealth education budget. That is just by increasing participation by two per cent. So not only does it have a huge effect on the individuals; it has a huge effect on the budget. Rather than running around scurrilously peddling misinformation—

Senator Jacinta Collins —Scurrilously?

Senator PATTERSON —If you do not know what it means, look it up. Mr Swan always gets it wrong. He always peddles half-truths. Mr Swan needs to focus on developing a policy rather than, as I said today, salivating every time he sees some document. He has never seen a policy document because he has never produced one himself.

Senator JACINTA COLLINS —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question that focuses on one area rather than on the insults. Can the minister confirm she has sought the Prime Minister's agreement to fund the differences between Centrelink's forward estimates and the projections arising from its new funding model? Given that the minister warned on page 11 of her leaked letter that a failure to meet the funding gap would require significant cutbacks in services and given that Centrelink was found to have made 1.1 million mistakes over four months with its current resources, has the Prime Minister agreed to her request?

Senator PATTERSON (Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women) —I am not going to discuss what might have been or what might not have been in the document and what I might have said or what I might not have said to the Prime Minister in a preliminary document that went to him. I am not prepared to discuss that. I am prepared to discuss that we have made huge improvements in Centrelink's customer service since we have been in government. Senator Jacinta Collins talks about errors. When you have 4.2 billion transactions a year you expect that there would be some errors. We want to ensure that those errors are minimised so that we have as few errors as possible.

Since we have been in government, in terms of Centrelink we have replaced standing in line for your number for service with letting people have appointments, we have extended the opening hours and we have changed the day—

Government senator—She is not even listening to your answer.

Senator PATTERSON —Senator Collins just read out the question and now she is not listening to the answer, but it does not matter. What we have done is improve the service—and it is about service to customers—to customers of Centrelink enormously. Now it is personalised—there are personal assistants to assist people. (Time expired)