AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Daniel Hurst, political correspondent
theguardian.com, Tuesday 27 May 2014
Nearly $7m previously earmarked for the royal commission into child sexual abuse has been redirected into the Abbott government’s $20m inquiry into Labor’s home insulation scheme.
The attorney general, George Brandis, had previously denied that funding for the insulation royal commission had been offset by cuts to any other royal commission.
Brandis told a parliamentary committee hearing in February he understood the funding for the insulation royal commission had been “absorbed by the department itself” and “no money has been taken away from anywhere else”. But he vowed at the time to take the question on notice.
The formal answer provided to the Senate estimates committee shows the Attorney General’s Department, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Industry each contributed $6.7m for the home insulation royal commission, while the Finance Department provided $1m.
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