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

The purpose of the parliament is for the opposition to pose questions to the executive and the purpose of the parliament is to get answers from the executive. When, therefore, we have a report in the nation’s newspaper, in an article by Hedley Thomas, which says, ‘Liberal Party figures in Queensland including a forensic accountant had been examining the purchase of links between the vendors and the Labor Party’s investment companies for several months,’ I would have thought that a forum for asking whether or not that is true is the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. What we know for a fact is that, whenever asked beyond this place as to the truth of these things, the actual pressure placed on ministers to answer truthfully is much less than that which applies in this place.

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