Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, in light of your response to the previous question about business meetings in Sudan, can you explain comments reported today by the Vice-President of Beijing AustChina Technology, Maggie Zeng:

Our company needed to do some business in Sudan in 2006, Kevin went with us. We were just doing business with some companies in Sudan, including some telecoms companies.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first point is: I am not certain who that individual is. Secondly, during the visit to Sudan I had no meetings whatsoever concerning telecommunications of any description, nor was I in Sudan with any representative of that company. Furthermore, on the broad question of why members of parliament use sponsored travel, particularly when they are in opposition, if you had been shadow foreign minister for as long as I was, you would know there is no travel budget provided through the parliament. As a consequence, you rely upon private sponsorship. The way to maintain public accountability in this is to make sure that your pecuniary interest register declares all such sources of sponsored travel and is done so in full conformity with the laws of the country. That is my response to the honourable member’s question.