Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:00): I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) to questions without notice asked by Senator Urquhart, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Wong) and Senators Ludlam and Xenophon today relating to funding for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Here we are today where we have around 400, maybe more, jobs to go out of the ABC. We asked the minister questions about the broken promise of this Prime Minister Abbott that is now directly responsible for over 400 job cuts to the ABC. What did we get from him? We got that it is a decision of the ABC. It is absolutely outrageous. We got no answers about jobs. We got no compassion from the minister who is the Minister for Employment, no compassion about the 400 people who are going to lose their jobs over the next couple of years, because his government gave the false story the day before the election when the now Prime Minister of Australia said to the Australian people, 'There will be no cuts to the ABC.' Here we are today with 400-plus jobs gone from the ABC. That is what it means. We have a Prime Minister who told Australia a pack of lies. There is no other word for it. He lied to the Australian people. The PRESIDENT: Senator Urquhart, you have to withdraw that last remark. Senator URQUHART: I withdraw that, but he deceived the Australian people. He deceived the Australian people prior to the election when he said there would be no cuts to the ABC. Even his minister, Minister Turnbull, on 7.30 the other night could not even support him. Malcolm Turnbull said: Well—well, look, you know, I mean, I've defended the Prime Minister on this today and earlier in the week. I think you've got to take his comments, which—look, I mean, what he said, he said, and, you know, it's there, it's on the record. But you've got to take that in the context. What context do you take when he said there will be no cuts? How can that be taken out of context when as opposition leader—an opposition leader one day, the Prime Minister the next day—he stood up and told the Australian voters that there will be not cuts to the ABC? Then, the very next day when he becomes Prime Minister, he has obviously changed his mind His minister is saying that you have to put it in context. I do not know what context you can take that in. If they say there will be no cuts to the ABC, that is what people believe. They believe that is what he will do. But now we have a situation where there are 400 jobs going. Then at Senate estimates last week where we had members of the National Party raising their voices at the Managing Director of the ABC, Mr Mark Scott, demanding that they provide some comfort for regional Australia, that they not lose some of their regional services. This is your government. Your government are the ones that have introduced the cuts to the ABC. It is interesting to note that in questioning from Senator Conroy to Senator Johnston, Senator Johnston talked about cuts to the ABC— Senator Conroy: Three times. Senator URQUHART: Three times he said 'cuts to the ABC'. So even Minister Johnston on that side has accepted there are cuts to the ABC. He put it down. He said it in Hansard. The questions that I asked Senator Abetz were about the 400 jobs, but there was no compassion from him at all. What we heard from Senator Abetz was only, 'Nobody has lost their job.' I just cannot describe how those 400-plus people, those workers at the ABC, would be feeling about their minister who is saying nobody has lost their job when he knows very well that those workers, 400 of them at least, are going to lose their jobs. All the Minister for Employment can say is, 'Nobody has lost their job.' Well, Minister Abetz, they will lose their jobs because of the cuts that your government has made to the ABC, cuts that Prime Minister Abbott said the day before the election would not occur—'No cuts to the ABC'.