Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I agree that the planning and design by the previous government was more than tragic—absolutely. It is important to put this in context. This was not a minor miscalculation; this was designed and budgeted for—$11 million— in the last financial year by the previous government but, in fact, it was going to cost $110 million over the next four years. Let me repeat that: the projection was that it would cost not the $52 million budgeted by those opposite but $780 million. Over a decade, it was going to cost $1.5 billion. This was not a situation of my creation; it was a situation I inherited. It would not have been the responsible thing to sit back and do nothing.