Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his commitment of two years and five months ago to sever all ties between the Australian Labor Party and the militant union bosses Kevin Reynolds and Joe McDonald, leaders of the Western Australian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Engineering Union, and I quote:

… when it comes to the way in which we conduct our political campaigns, we’re not going to obtain campaign finance from such individuals and the parts of the union movement which they represent.

Will the Prime Minister confirm the statement this week by Mr Reynolds that the Western Australian branch of the CFMEU has donated $80,000 a year to the Labor Party since the Prime Minister’s commitment? Will the Prime Minister refund these donations or is this just another Labor broken promise?

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

I think the honourable member would be familiar with the fact that the likes of Kevin Reynolds and various other celebrated individuals in that particular union do not necessarily hold either myself or others in this government in the highest regard. Going back to the expulsion of certain individuals from the Australian Labor Party, the news from today—

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. The Prime Minister was not asked about his friendship with these individuals. He was asked about whether he would take their money.

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

The member for Sturt will resume his seat. The Prime Minister.

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

I understand the news from today is that the construction division of the CFMEU has finally seen the light and withdrawn from the Australian Labor Party altogether, which, from my own point of view, is good news all round—in terms of its affiliation, that is. On the question of campaign donations, those questions should be directed to the national secretary of the party. If the honourable member seriously expects the leader of any political party to have available to him details concerning campaign finance, there would be a very interesting set of questions which I would then have directed to the Leader of the Opposition. For example, how much money from the tobacco lobby has been given to the Liberal Party in the last year and the year before that and the year before that? We have been engaged in a debate led by the member for Dickson of late about the future of public health. One of the key elements of that is preventative health strategies and yet we have one participant in the debate, the Liberal Party of Australia, which says, ‘Oh, we can participate in this debate with clean hands,’ while raking in the money from big tobacco on the way through. I would suggest: ‘Physician heal thyself.’