Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is absolutely imperative that this whole episode relating to OzCar is thrown open to the fullest public scrutiny. The Prime Minister has ordered an Auditor-General’s report with narrow terms of reference. He has called, as I have said, on the Australian Federal Police to investigate the existence and the authenticity of this particular email allegedly between the Prime Minister’s senior economics adviser, Andrew Charlton, and the Treasury official, Mr Grech.

The Prime Minister began on Friday by denying the existence of any such email. The departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Treasury had scoured their databases, he said. According to the Prime Minister they could find nothing. Today there are reports in the media suggesting that the AFP has located an email and Mr Rudd has rushed out to claim that it is a forgery. We do not know on what sources he relies to make that claim. For our part, and on the part of everybody concerned in getting to the truth of this matter, we should await the outcome of the AFP investigation. It is not my role or that of the Prime Minister to prejudge that investigation. Indeed to do so would be to risk compromising the investigation, interfering in the proper course of that investigation.

We propose that there be a judicial inquiry—and we recommend this to the government—in the OzCar matter. Its terms of reference, which we would propose, would be that it be established to inquire into the full extent of the relationship between the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, Mr Bernie Ripoll and the car dealer John Grant including but not limited to: firstly, all communications between Mr Grant and any of his associates with the government including members of parliament, government officials, ministerial and electorate staff including emails from government, parliamentary and personal accounts, text, SMS, MMS and Blackberry messages, voicemail and voice-to-text messages; secondly, any communications, preparations or discussions in relation to the appearance of Treasury officials before the Senate committee last Friday, 19 June; thirdly, any involvement by opposition members of parliament and their staff—we are happy to be investigated by this judicial inquiry; and fourthly, the 51 Club, Labor fundraising and any previous business dealings and transactions between the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, Mr Ripoll and Mr John Grant. The Prime Minister has made the most reckless allegations here today.

See this speech in context