Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister. I refer to his statement to parliament on 1 November 2005, where he said:

The Volcker inquiry had access at all times to any documents within the possession of the Australian government that it wanted.

I also refer to Mr Volcker’s comments on 7 February 2005, since released by the inquiry, that the Australian government had been ‘beyond reticent, even forbidding’ in response the committee’s requests. Prime Minister, isn’t it a fact that for the first 12 months of the Volcker inquiry you knew that Australian officials had been gagged from cooperating with the inquiry and appearing before them and that, when you later said, ‘At no time did we ever reject requests from the Volcker inquiry,’ you were engaged in a cover-up and had deliberately lied to the parliament?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable member’s question is no.