Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister heard reports of a party last night at which his coalition colleagues were celebrating the Cole inquiry’s conclusion? Does he endorse the comment by one coalition MP that:

In the midst of all this sadness and recrimination, it was a feeling of euphoria that it was over.

While Liberals cracked open the bubbly, did the Prime Minister think at all of the Australian soldiers in Iraq and his role in making them less safe?

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

I was not aware of any party last night. I am obviously losing my touch because I was not asked. I will tell you what I was doing. Last night I was doing two things. It is interesting that the member for Wills asked me a question about our Defence Force. Last night, I attended a dinner organised by the Minister for Defence in honour of the retiring Secretary to the Department of Defence, Mr Ric Smith. I take this opportunity—given to me by the member for Wills—of placing on record my profound gratitude to Mr Smith for the faithful way in which he has served the Commonwealth of Australia and governments of both political persuasions in a number of positions. I first seriously encountered him when he was—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

You asked me a question about last night. I will give you an answer about last night. I first encountered Mr Smith when he was the Australian ambassador in Beijing when I visited that capital in 1997. He did an outstanding job in looking after the interests of Australia in the wake of the Bali attack when he was the ambassador in Jakarta and over the past three and a bit years he has served very effectively as the Secretary to the Department of Defence. I do not know whether there were any other parties going on, but after that, I went off to address a magnificent group of small business men and women, the pharmacists of Australia. The pharmacists of Australia have no better friend than the Howard government. I made that very plain to them last night.

As for our troops overseas, I would hope that it was the bipartisan concern that our troops overseas would always be respected, would always be supported and would always be honoured irrespective of who was in power. I have to say that that cheap attempt by the member for Wills to suggest that in some way some of my colleagues were less than supportive of the troops overseas is absolutely contemptible.