John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the Leader of the Opposition’s question is no. What I said yesterday, which he did not accurately quote, was that Mr Cole had said in February of last year that if, during his investigation, he discovered evidence that an officer of the Commonwealth—and that includes a minister—had broken a law of the Commonwealth, a state or territory, he would seek an extension of his terms of reference. He sought no such extension.

It will be up to the Australian public when they read the report to draw their conclusions about the false allegations of dishonesty, negligence, bribery and corruption that have been made by the Leader of the Opposition and his colleague from Griffith for the last year. When the report comes out, the Australian public can judge the veracity of the outrageous allegations that have been made, especially against the character of the Minister for Foreign Affairs who, in my view, has done an outstanding job representing the interests of this nation abroad. It is very easy to fling those sorts of allegations around under parliamentary privilege, but once the report is out the Australian public will make a judgement about the standards and behaviour of the Leader of the Opposition.

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