Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I do sincerely thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. On the question of things that the member for Dawson may have said, I will check. I will not take the word of the Leader of the Opposition on that. On the substance of the Leader of the Opposition’s question, it strikes me as remarkable that the Leader of the Liberal Party would be calling on someone to apologise to President-elect Obama other than the former Prime Minister of this nation, John Howard. That is who should be apologising to President-elect Obama.

Let us just imagine a parallel universe where in 2007 John Howard had won the last election. Let us imagine a parallel universe where John Howard is in the prime ministership—the member for Higgins has been reassured by him that he will hand it over when he is 94, so the member for Higgins is patiently waiting—and the presidential election is over; we know that President-elect Obama has won. Let us just imagine how that phone call would have gone between Prime Minister Howard and President-elect Obama. I do not think it would have escaped President-elect Obama’s notice that Prime Minister Howard said about him:

I think that would just encourage those who wanted completely to destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for (an) Obama victory.

These are the words of former Prime Minister Howard:

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.

Just imagine how that telephone conversation would have gone. Just imagine it.

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