Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

This is what John Howard said:

If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.

That is what the former Prime Minister said, and the then defence minister, the former Leader of the Opposition, went out the next day and supported it—and not you as a minister, nor you as a minister nor anyone else as a minister disassociated themselves from those remarks. That was the Liberal Party’s position—that President-elect Obama was a candidate for the terrorists. Your senior senator, Senator Fifield, said on Sky in October:

I do think it’s a very serious matter when you have a presidential candidate who thinks it’s okay to hang around with people who supported and sponsored murder and terrorist bombings. I think that’s a very legitimate point.

I did not see you debunking or rebuking him.

See this speech in context