HomeStart Finance

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:10): My supplementary question again to the Treasurer. Treasurer, yesterday you told the house, 'I've not seen anything that would suggest that we have' in regard to the scoping of HomeStart Finance. Is it the Treasurer's position that the then treasurer, now Premier, scoped HomeStart Finance and did not tell the minister as to the responsibilities about the scoping and he did not receive the cabinet papers for cabinet meetings of 18 June 2013, or that if he did receive those cabinet papers he simply didn't read them?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:10): Mr Speaker, first and foremost, he is making a lot of presumptions in his question, that there was a cabinet—

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kavel is called to order.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: He makes presumptions about what a particular cabinet meeting may or may not have considered on the basis of an FOI request, or denial. It has been a longstanding practice in this place that we do not discuss cabinet deliberations. I say again to the opposition: judge the government on what it has done. I point out to the parliament and to the public that HomeStart Finance is sitting safely in government hands.