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

The simple obligation that comes out of question time is for the Leader of the Opposition to do what he demanded of me. He demanded of me that I give chapter and verse of a perfectly legitimate telephone conversation conducted in the course of my duties as Prime Minister of Australia with a reputable businessman—a person who has given service to this nation as well as being successful in business—who was going into partnership in a business venture with a member of the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia, one of Australia’s most esteemed mining executives, Hugh Morgan, and Robert Champion de Crespigny, who has not only been successful in the mining industry but also been regarded as good enough by the Labor Party to have a seat at the cabinet table. That is how Mike Rann, the Labor Premier of South Australia, has described it.

It is part of my job to talk to people like this, but it is not part of the job—unless you are scrounging for votes—of a Labor Party federal backbencher to be going to the sorts of gatherings enumerated by the Treasurer with somebody who is a convicted felon, who is under a ban by Dr Gallop and who—according to what has come out of the CCC inquiry—was involved in what can only be called a swindle of the Xstrata company that involved that company having to pay some $20 million. I can only brand as pathetic the attempt by the member for Grayndler to say, ‘All of that is no worse than being a member of the Exclusive Brethren.’ That is pathetic, and I think the House has observed that all of these questions were asked by the member for Grayndler—none were asked of me by the Leader of the Opposition.

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