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

Mr Speaker, it might be challenging to some of those opposite, but the question actually went to the importance of honesty in national political life and national leadership. I would draw the acting manager of opposition business’s attention to the actual text of the question. In terms of the honesty which is at stake in this debate on this fake email affair, I draw the House’s attention to some of the things which have been said in pursuit of honesty in this House today by the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition today has said he has never accused—he said it in public today, he may have said it in the House as well—myself or the Treasurer of corruption. Mr Speaker, let me read to you what he said in his press conference on 19 June. He said:

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have used their offices and taxpayers’ resources to seek advantage for one of their mates and then lied about it to the Parliament.

Mr Speaker, what form of language and interpretation can be used in relation to a statement like that, other than to say that it is an accusation of corruption. Any fair-minded person would reach that conclusion.

Can I also say that on the question of the handling of this matter since the events of yesterday, again on the question of honesty, those opposite sought in recent times to say that Senator Abetz in the Senate only raised the question of the contents of this fake email after it appeared in the Daily Telegraph. Yesterday those opposite could not even get their stories straight. Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition—who intently avoids my gaze—say that in fact the only reason Senator Abetz raised this—

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