Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How can the people of Australia trust the Prime Minister’s word when on at least six separate occasions over the past 30 days she pledged loyalty to the member for Griffith, yet this morning this loyalty was betrayed?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question—although, coming from him, it somewhat surprises me. Obviously, as Deputy Prime Minister I worked with and supported closely Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. That was the appropriate thing to do. It was also appropriate for me, as a senior member of the Labor government, to think and particularly to canvass in my own mind views about the performance of the government and the best way of making sure that we were a government that was always, each and every day, serving the interests of the Australian people.

As is now a matter of record, and I said it this morning, I did form the view that this was a good government that in some areas had lost its way. I also did form the view that the best way of making sure that this government was back on track, providing to the Australian people the leadership that they deserve—focused on their jobs, their working conditions, health, education, the infrastructure they need for the future and the big challenges like climate change—was to take the course that I took last night and this morning. I am well aware that there are others who will look at that and will form a view as to whether I took the correct course. That is the nature of politics; that is the nature of making decisions about the questions of how the national interest is best served. I made a decision, and I stand by it absolutely.