Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister.

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hale interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. The member for Solomon will withdraw.

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Withdrawn.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. At a time when the government is plunging this nation into record debt, why should tens of millions of dollars of additional taxpayers’ money be spent on a vote-buying spree in Africa and Latin America to support the Prime Minister’s personal ambition of a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council? Are Australians paying for his job application as UN Secretary-General?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The question has been asked. I would have thought that people would have liked to hear the answer.

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

I read with much amusement the article in the Australian this morning. It is the most baseless article I have ever read. As the journalist who wrote the article I understand confirmed in the article, he telephoned my office and, prior to obtaining a reply from my office, went ahead and produced the article. My office rang back and he did not return that call. Though I know the journalist in question and have had a longstanding good relationship with him, this article is entirely a fabrication, and I question why it was produced in the way in which it was.

I thank also the shadow foreign minister, as she now is, given her great track record of originality in all things. That has been part of her career trajectory from the shadow Treasury position into the shadow foreign ministry position. This question of originality concerns the importance that is attached to the United Nations and the Security Council. There were statements by the former foreign minister, Mr Downer, and by the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, about the importance of the United Nations General Assembly and about the importance of the United Nations Security Council. We, together with previous governments, both Labor and Liberal, are doing what all Australian governments have historically done, which is to obtain whatever support we can to try and prosecute a campaign for the future for Australia to obtain a position on the United Nations Security Council. In doing so, we are seeking to prosecute Australia’s international interests in the long term.

Part of those international interests in the long term goes also to our role in various international financial institutions. One of those financial institutions is the International Monetary Fund. The International Monetary Fund and our contribution to it, and in fact to other international monetary authorities, was raised recently by the member for xenophobia over there, the member for Aston, in the question that he raised before. We as a government have a deep interest in what fabric constitutes itself—

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask you to request the Prime Minister to withdraw that highly offensive remark.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It might assist the House if I ask the Prime Minister to withdraw.

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

I withdraw. It is good to see the spirit of Hansonism alive and well on the benches of those opposite.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During this week, you required one member to withdraw calling ‘the Swan’ a goose. Today we require you to get the Prime Minister to withdraw provocative remarks about the member for Aston.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will withdraw.

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

Mr Speaker, my remarks were not about the member for Aston but about the opposition corporately for endorsing a question like that, which demonstrates that Hansonism is alive and well. To assist the House, I will of course withdraw.

It goes to the question of contributions—and you should wrestle with your conscience on this one—to our international financial institutions. Of course, the single greatest set of contributions has been made recently by governments around the world, and prospectively by the Australian government, to the International Monetary Fund, for a range of reasons—firstly, to assist countries who are in deep need in their own financial circumstances; and, secondly, to ensure that we maintain the stability of the international financial system. That is why governments got together in London recently and agreed on a massive injection of resources into the IMF.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My question was about the vote buying spree in Africa and Latin America designed for 2012—the year of the vote.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. The point of order is relevance. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

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

It is countries around the world, and the emerging world in particular—including in the continents just referred to by the shadow foreign minister, as she is these days—in which the International Monetary Fund operates. But the core principle, and why governments around the world support these institutions, is not only that it is inherently the right thing to do in the spirit of Bretton Woods going back to 1944—which I think all decent governments and parties, Liberal and Labor, have supported from then until now—but it is also an investment in our collective self-interest. When it goes to economies in Europe, for example, if there is an implosion in those economies, the ricochet effect through Europe and global financial markets back to the domestic Australian financial market is significant and potentially extreme. Therefore, international financial institutions, properly resourced—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. On the issue of relevance, the Prime Minister was not asked a question about the International Monetary Fund; he was asked—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt will resume his seat. The first aspect of the question most probably should have been ruled out of order in that it introduced argument. The central aspect of the question went to certain funding overseas—if I recall rightly, to Africa. It is in that context that the Prime Minister, I believe, is responding.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I note that in his point of order the member for Sturt said that the question dealt with the foreign aid budget. The foreign aid budget was not referred to at all, not in one word in the question asked by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, demonstrating the high level of coordination that now exists within the 40-member tactics committee of the opposition, representing all factions. Frankly, they moved into the caucus room to have their tactics meeting in the morning!

In terms of the matters raised by the member for Aston, and the question asked by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, I would just draw the attention of those opposite to this statement by the Leader of the Opposition about our contributions to international monetary authorities. In relation to the G20, on 3 April he said:

The biggest thing they’ve done, overwhelmingly the most important thing they’ve done, is agreed to commit about a trillion dollars to the International Monetary Fund collectively; now that’s a good measure …

So says the Leader of the Liberal Party. It was obviously not quite cross-referenced with the member for Aston’s question before or with some of the other things that have been said recently. I would suggest to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, as she seeks to take potshots at the budget that has been delivered by the government, that she reflect on her friend and party colleague the Western Australian Premier, who said that his government welcomed fundamentally the contribution to the state of Western Australia by this Australian Labor government, that the Western Australian government has secured funding for deep-sea ports and industrial sites and that those projects could now go ahead. It was, from the perspective of the Western Australian Liberal government, a first-class budget, helping the development of Western Australia. I think the honourable member should consult with her party colleagues.