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

I understand the news from today is that the construction division of the CFMEU has finally seen the light and withdrawn from the Australian Labor Party altogether, which, from my own point of view, is good news all round—in terms of its affiliation, that is. On the question of campaign donations, those questions should be directed to the national secretary of the party. If the honourable member seriously expects the leader of any political party to have available to him details concerning campaign finance, there would be a very interesting set of questions which I would then have directed to the Leader of the Opposition. For example, how much money from the tobacco lobby has been given to the Liberal Party in the last year and the year before that and the year before that? We have been engaged in a debate led by the member for Dickson of late about the future of public health. One of the key elements of that is preventative health strategies and yet we have one participant in the debate, the Liberal Party of Australia, which says, ‘Oh, we can participate in this debate with clean hands,’ while raking in the money from big tobacco on the way through. I would suggest: ‘Physician heal thyself.’

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