Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Liberal government’s paeans of praise for this company go on. We have one from 27 March 2006 to Mr Ian Tang himself, again from the Australian Embassy in Beijing, advising Mr Tang what a wonderful job that company was doing. I table that one as well. From all of these documents we see a clear pattern. Whether it be the National Party, which is the recipient of $155,000 worth of political donations and whose Deputy Prime Minister in government was in Beijing actively supporting the project of Mr Ian Tang, or whether it be the Liberal Party, through the communications minister, Senator Alston—given the technology focus of another part of this company’s operations. All along they have been actively supporting this company’s operation and, through Australia’s agencies in China—namely, the Australian Embassy and Austrade—they put on the documentary record not just the nature of this company’s activities but how much this government actively supported it. Therefore, I think we have a case of someone’s credibility—namely, the member for Goldstein—collapsing in a heap.

Let me go through what the member for Goldstein has said this week. On Tuesday of this week he said that my particular crime against humanity was that I had travelled to the Sudan in the company of a representative of this company. That was untrue. He went on to say that, while I was in Sudan, I was there representing the commercial interests of this company in the technology field. That was untrue; I was visiting western Darfur. Then today he had the audacity to go on the national media and say, ‘We don’t know about this company.’ Honourable Member for Goldstein, the government of which you were a part knew a flaming lot about this company. The National Party-Liberal Party got 155 grand on the kick. I would suggest that we have here a modest case of double standards. If there is a fundamental problem of supported commercial travel, let the member for Goldstein come to the dispatch box now and announce on behalf of the opposition that they do not wish to receive any supported travel of a commercial nature in the future.

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