Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s comments this morning when asked about the amount of money being spent on his taxpayer funded industrial relations PR campaign. He said:

... while the details of that campaign are being fully settled, it’s not possible to put a precise figure on it.

Is the Prime Minister confirming that his government has authorised a blank cheque for this taxpayer funded PR campaign? Prime Minister, what is the upper funding limit of this PR campaign?

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

It is not a PR campaign. It is designed to provide necessary information to the Australian public. No objective observer examining the campaign would see it as other than providing genuine information. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has, I understand, this morning provided some indicative figure about the costs to date. Beyond the campaign, which will be running, I think, for the rest of this week to provide people with more information, there is nothing planned beyond this week but, if there is, the public will be informed.