Abuse inquiry funds batts inquiry

Business Spectator
May 28, 2014

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2014/5/28/policy-politics/abuse-inquiry-funds-batts-inquiry

The Abbott government shifted $4 million in unspent money from the child sexual abuse royal commission to the inquiry into a Labor government home insulation program.

The royal commission into the stimulus program, which led to four deaths, began just before Christmas.

It heard from former prime minister Kevin Rudd and his former ministers Peter Garrett, Greg Combet and Mark Arbib earlier in May.

Now the Attorney-General's Department has revealed $4 million of funding for the 18-month-old Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was redirected to the insulation royal commission.

The money came from savings achieved in the 2013/14 capital budget, the department has said in just published response to a question taken on notice from a Senate estimates hearing in February.

Another $2.7 million came from funding earmarked to help pay the legal costs of witnesses to the abuse inquiry, and which wasn't used in 2013/14.

Attorney-General George Brandis was asked for these details in February, after saying there had been some underspending.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus says the government must explain why money was taken from the child sexual royal commission, which is expected to run for years.

"We need to know that this government is standing fully behind the royal commission," he told ABC radio on Wednesday.

A spokesman for Senator Brandis said abuse royal commission would have sufficient funding.