Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

How weak is this Prime Minister? He misleads the House in an attempt to cover up the fact that this hopeless government, this tired, third-term government, is so embarrassed by the fact that one of its own ministers won't fess up to the fact that his implausible story about downloading a document from a website is completely wrong. The Prime Minister came in here and misled the House, and then what did he do about it when he was found out? Did he turn up? Did he cop to it? Did he show some actual courage and some spine? Not at all. He showed no spine. What did he do? He sent a note and he sent in the Leader of the House to cover up for him. He won't even turn up. We invited him to come into this parliament this morning at 9.30 and explain himself, to do what we expect our kids to do when they have done the wrong thing—stand up, take responsibility, do the right thing, cop to it and apologise. But he is so weak and such is his failure of leadership that he can't set an example for the nation. He certainly can't set an example for his own ministers. He can't hold them to the standards that he is responsible for administering because he is too weak to show any leadership. He's been too weak this whole time. The Australian people have found him out. This is a Prime Minister who cannot stand up for integrity, and he will learn the hard way exactly how wrong that is.

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