Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I would like to address my comments to those who are watching and listening to this broadcast, and I want to ask them to have an open mind. They will think that in what I am doing I am taking some kind of political tack. It is not; it is just a statement of fact. I ask them to listen to the facts. It flows from the announcement yesterday of a state election in Queensland.

For months and months and months, the Premier has been saying, ‘We will go our full term.’ When asked by the media, ‘When is the election?’ she said, ‘We will go our full term.’ As late as last week, she said, ‘We will go our full term.’ What we now find out is, of course, that all of the material was produced for an election, a Women’s Weekly supplement was produced for the election and all the advertisements were booked, but the Premier was still saying, ‘We’re going to go our full term.’ I get a bit cynical about that, and I hope that those who are listening and watching tonight will also get a bit cynical about that. It is wrong to mislead the electorate, and it is wrong to enter a situation where you basically tell a porky. I think the people of Australia and Queensland deserve better than that. But we have an election—an early election. People will be unhappy, and they—

See this speech in context