Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to this March 2006 letter from the Cole commission. It states in black and white that Mr Cole had no power to make determinations on whether ministers had breached their legal obligations under Australia’s prohibited export regulations. Why did the Prime Minister rort the Cole inquiry’s terms of reference by refusing to give it the power to determine whether ministers upheld their legal obligations?

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

The government did not rort the terms of the inquiry. The Australian public will have an opportunity in about an hour’s time, or perhaps less, depending on the length of question time, to make up their own mind in relation to the farrago of falsehoods that have been levelled against the government by the opposition.