Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer him to correspondence released last night between the Treasurer and the Special Minister of State which shows that the Prime Minister and his senior ministers were planning an advertising ambush of the resources sector well before the announcement of its great big new tax on mining. I ask: how can the government claim last Friday that we are in a national emergency when its $38 million advertising campaign has been planned for months? How can the Prime Minister assert that the tax has not impacted on the finance markets when the Treasurer says that it has? And how can he assert that he was truthful in the parliament last week when he has been contradicted by his own ministers?

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

Coming from the Leader of the Opposition, who was one of the greatest users and abusers of public advertising in his period in government, I find this set of questions remarkable. There was the use and abuse of the Work Choices campaign, not to mention rock-solid, ironclad guarantees concerning Medicare. The honourable Leader of the Opposition asked a question about remarks made in this place yesterday. Firstly, I was very clear about the fact, in response to a question from the member for Farrer, that the government, from the early part of this year, had been intending to conduct a public information campaign in support of the changes to the proposed tax system. Secondly, I further indicated that the government also then used the guidelines which enabled that campaign to be brought forward, given the campaign of disinformation which has been mounted by the mining industry, not entirely unassisted by the Leader of the Opposition himself.

This campaign is necessary for the following reasons: (1) the government will not stand idly by while the mining industry runs the opposition’s line of attack in this parliament (2) the government will not stand idly by while misinformation is placed in the Australian community by elements of the mining industry who simply do not want to pay more tax and (3) this government will act in the national interest in order to make sure that it can deliver better super, tax cuts for all companies and tax cuts also for Australian small business. The government stands by its actions—every single one of them.