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

One of the interesting things about the debate in the chamber this afternoon is that the Prime Minister has just required a prime ministerial protection order from interventions. If this is a serious debate about matters before the House and matters before the nation, why is that particular procedural device necessary to protect the Prime Minister from the indignity of points of order? I find it extraordinary that the Leader of the House would seek to protect the Prime Minister in such a fashion rather than allow the Prime Minister to fend for himself, as other members of this chamber are required to do.

The motion before us asks why these questions have been put to the parliament today. The answer is that the function of the parliament is to provide the executive with the opportunity to answer questions put to it by the opposition. These are matters which therefore demand answers. What we have had from those opposite today is a sense of continued feigned indignation, as if any negative smear campaign has been mysteriously pulled out of space, with which those opposite have had nothing whatsoever to do—no awareness whatsoever on the part of the Prime Minister or on the part of anybody else. But look carefully at the Prime Minister’s response to the questions which were asked: ‘I, the Prime Minister, have no awareness of any such activity. I am not responsible for it and I am not aware of others in the Liberal Party and the government.’ We have heard that through ‘children overboard’; we have heard that through the ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal; we have heard it time in and time out as you have sought to avoid accountability in this parliament.

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