Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I have a question to you. Mr Speaker, my question to you relates to the ruling you made during question time relying on the ruling of Senator Wood as Acting Deputy President of the Senate in 1955 and contained on page 501 of House of Representatives Practice. The distinction in that ruling is that you would not require things to be withdrawn where they were political matters, but you would require things to be withdrawn where they were offensive in some personal way.

The allegation that someone is ‘soft on drugs’ is an allegation that someone is soft on criminal conduct and an allegation that someone is soft on an issue that kills and harms thousands of Australians each year. Mr Speaker, if you do not believe that that allegation is offensive in a personal way, does that mean, for example, that if I were to say—

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