Senator ABETZ (Tasmania—Leader of the Government in the Senate, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service and Minister for Employment) (14:03): Mr President, you have the ongoing interjections of the hapless Senator Cameron—a man who presided, with his Labor Party frontbench, to ensure that no money would be available to the research and science community in this country. We said very clearly that $150 million would be made available for— The PRESIDENT: Pause the clock. You have a point of order, Senator Wong. Senator Wong: Mr President, I rise on a point of order: relevance. The minister was asked about the Prime Minister's authorisation of the threat to hold these jobs hostage and when he changed his position. The PRESIDENT: Minister, I will remind you of the question. You have 38 seconds in which to respond. Senator ABETZ: The $150 million of which I was talking is exactly the money we made available to provide for the funding of those 1,700 scientists who, under the Labor Party regime, would have been sacked as of 1 July this year. Nobody was held hostage. What we as a government said was that, if you make a new policy proposal as a government, you have to have financial offsets. We had one offset that has been offered. That has not been accepted. There are now other offsets that will be made. (Time expired)