Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

No, it was absolutely in order. I might add, having indicated to the chamber that I will listen carefully to the answers, whilst I appreciate that some might not appreciate the robustness of the answer, the answer has not gone into territory which should cause concern under the standing orders.

YU5 Tanner, Lindsay, MPMr TANNER—Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I will not further speculate on what the Leader of the Opposition means by full cooperation, but I would in conclusion draw your attention to a few statements that have been made today by the Leader of the Opposition and by the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney. I note, for example, that when he was asked on Sunrise today whether he had ever seen the fake email the Leader of the Opposition said that he was ‘not going to compromise the police investigation by answering that question’. I note also that there has been some confusion between the Leader of the Opposition and the member for North Sydney with respect to contacts that may have occurred between them and Mr Grech prior to the Senate hearing on Friday, which is when this matter first appeared in the public domain. I note, for example, that the shadow Treasurer stated on the doors, ‘I’d imagine people in the opposition did have contact with Treasury officials,’ in response to the question, ‘Did you or anybody in the Liberal Party have contact with Mr Grech prior to his testimony?’ Then the shadow Treasurer said, ‘I would expect that this is the case. I don’t want to compromise police investigations at all.’ In other words, far from providing full cooperation, they are now using the existence of police investigations as an excuse to maintain a smokescreen and to refuse to answer questions about their knowledge of these matters. On Sunrise, the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, when asked what his knowledge of the email was, said:

There’s been talk about it around the place for ages. I heard it around the place.

Has the minister for finance concluded?

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