Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

He has asked me a question about the decision of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party in relation to the payment of some expenses. I would refer the shadow minister to the statement of the Liberal Party's Victorian director on 5 May 2011 where he was dealing with the question of payment by the Liberal Party of expenses in a defamation incurred by a Liberal member, where he said:

The suggestion that there is any conflict of interest for the Liberal Party to support one of its parliamentarians in a defamation action arising from his public duties, when in opposition, is ridiculous.

Then, of course, Premier Baillieu was also questioned about the matter. I say to the Liberal Party: what this proves is the stinking hypocrisy which is driving it each and every day. The Liberal Party paying defamation expenses for a member—apparently that is okay. A Liberal Party member is charged with criminal offences. We do the right thing and make no presumptions about her guilt or innocence, and they ask us to do that, but in relation to the member for Dobell they are not prepared to do the same. The Liberal Party: always prepared to throw allegations of cover-ups against other people, but the Leader of the Opposition knew for months that one of his members had been criminally charged and said nothing about it until he was asked. The Liberal Party: always very keen to say that the member for Dobell should surrender his committee chair position, but a Liberal Senator who is charged with criminal offences is apparently fine.

Frankly, what really needs to happen here are common standards, and common standards require the following: if people are under investigation then we make no assumptions and we allow that investigation to take its course. That is what we have been prepared to do every day regarding a member of parliament in the other place. That is what the Leader of the Opposition should do regarding the member for Dobell. Anything else is hypocrisy that is fuelled by the opposition's political interest. As the shadow Treasurer has just laid plain before this parliament, the Liberal Party does not care about anything else—not about jobs, not about health, not about education, not about the economy, not about anything else—except one job and that is a job for the Leader of the Opposition. While they are there, mired in their hypocrisy, we will get on with the job of leading this nation. (Time expired)

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