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

We are speaking to the urgency of the suspension, and it goes to the whole question of the integrity of the use of public resources in this country for their proper purposes, including the whole question of the national estate. But when we come to the proposition that the business community, having completed a form like this, were then bussed from the Hyatt over to the Lodge and greeted at the door of the Lodge by the Prime Minister, it is transparently obvious what the function was. If it smells like a fundraiser, if it looks like a fundraiser and, given the canapes on offer, if it tastes like a fundraiser, in all probability, Prime Minister, it is a fundraiser. Let’s just call a spade a spade here. It is like saying in the last few weeks we have been in the parliament that when it came to taxpayer funded political advertising, because it had not been approved, the fact that the advertising campaign existed meant, according to you, that it did not officially exist. This is the sort of word game, Prime Minister, the Australian people are growing tired of because they have seen it up hill and down dale.

Here is the second problem which the Prime Minister has in his defence. The Prime Minister says it is not a fundraiser.

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