Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, in terms of an issue not raised by the Leader of the House but about whether we can ask about ministers giving references or not, there have been a number of occasions, as you'd be aware, over the years where a minister providing a reference has been the subject of serious prosecution of issues within question time. The issue that the Leader of the House raised, on whether or not that would reasonably be something that the Prime Minister would have personal knowledge of—given that we're now in the second week of inquiry of this particular issue, I think it would be extraordinary for the Prime Minister to not have knowledge of this.

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