Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This was a grave error of prime ministerial judgement when we expect something more of our Prime Minister.

Let us go also to the question of truth. In this parliament we have become used to a Prime Minister who, when he says, ‘Black is white and white is black; I didn’t say that but in fact I said this,’ assumes it is all better by virtue of his declaration. On two occasions in the parliament today he said that he did not intend any generic critique of the Democratic Party; he said on two occasions that he was referring only to an individual. He then said it was only a reference to Senator Obama and not a generic reference to the Democratic Party. There is no way you can read this more clearly than as it is rendered in the media at present:

If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.

Prime Minister, you are found out in this debate for not telling the truth. I would say that, given the nature of this censure, it goes not just to your competence in dealing with the United States on these matters and the prospective alternative administration of the United States; it also goes to a core question of truth. You cannot simply stand there and after a decade or more in office—

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