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

Those opposite seem to think it is an unremarkable thing to refer to a statement directly from the British Prime Minister when he said no such thing. Can I say this to the honourable members opposite as they seek to shout and hope that this matter simply disappears: what did the British Prime Minister have to say in this speech about stimulus, Member for North Sydney? The British Prime Minister said the following about stimulus:

Just this morning I met with the head of the ILO to discuss the best way of protecting jobs.  In two days time I will be working for British jobs at the EU summit, stressing the need to implement fiscal stimulus packages in full without stopping them prematurely.

There is one reference to the word ‘stimulus’, I am advised, in this entire speech by the British Prime Minister. What we have from the member for North Sydney is a deliberate misrepresentation of the statement by the British Prime Minister in order to underpin a political attack here. The member for North Sydney can verbal people and he can infer what they may say according to his own view; he cannot purport in this place to directly quote the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as making a remark which says that they are winding back the British stimulus when the British Prime Minister made no such statement, none whatsoever.

We have had example after example of the member for North Sydney being absolutely sloppy with facts, most recently with his extraordinary conspiracy theory about the G20 as a global leftist conspiracy. We have the extraordinary statement he made to the Australian the other day that somehow there would be expenditure cuts of between $40 billion and $50 billion, depending on which version of events you happen to listen to. We have had his extraordinary statement also that jobs should somehow not be the top priority of any democratically elected government in this country. All these things are of one type: they go to misjudgment. This goes to integrity. It goes to the deliberate misrendering of a statement by the British Prime Minister to infer that the British Prime Minister had said that the UK government was winding back its stimulus strategy. It is not in the statement by the British Prime Minister at all. It has been deliberately added by the member for North Sydney in order to make a point. This goes to the heart of this member’s integrity. I would ask you now to make proper recourse to the devices of the House to stand at the dispatch box and make a personal explanation as to why this misrepresentation occurred.

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.

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