Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Anthony Albanese did receive a text, that is true, but it did not mention where the Prime Minister was going. It did not mention his tropical destination. It did not mention that he was travelling overseas—a point that you would think would be rather relevant. But what is astounding here is that this was unprompted. There was no reason to even mention that text message—none whatsoever. But when facing some political hot water—again, a duck, a weave, an obfuscation. Trying to get around a particular point the Prime Minister brought this text message up of his own volition and then inappropriately and inaccurately referenced it.

What I also find very interesting here is that the political gain that could have occurred or the personal gain that could have occurred by Anthony Albanese actually declaring that he had received it was not used at all. Anthony Albanese has a deep integrity and sees very clearly that a personal message, a private message, is just that. He did not mention it. That was two years ago. In two years he has not brought it up.

The contrast here between these two people could not be bigger. We have Anthony Albanese not mentioning these texts because private correspondence should be private and then we have the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, making really poor calls with some of these things. We only have to look at his disastrous diplomatic experience with the French President—leaking those text messages. The leader of one country, of this country, leaking a text message, a private text message, from the leader of another country. The lack of integrity is woeful. The significant serious lack of integrity of the person who we have leading this country is despicable. How on earth are the Australian people supposed to trust him?

Then we have the whole saga with former Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate. Mr Morrison set off a chain of events in question time that ended with the highly regarded chief executive being forced out of her position, costing taxpayers more than a million dollars when she was awarded a termination payment. The Prime Minister attempted to gaslight the nation, making out like Ms Holgate had left the organisation of her own volition. She did not.

We had the whole Brian Houston fiasco where the PM tried to get his mate into an official White House function and even the Trump administration wouldn't have him. The lies that went on after that—the Prime Minister said he hadn't done it. When it finally came out in the American press that he had absolutely tried to get his mate in he then had to backtrack, duck, weave and find some way of wriggling out of it. His commentary was, 'I don't comment on gossip or stories about other stories.' That's hardly integrity for the people of Australia. He then went on that he just didn't want to be distracted by it. The true answer is he didn't want to answer the question. He didn't want to provide that clarity and honesty to the people of Australia. He then said that 'at the end of the day it was not a significant matter'. I beg to disagree. He finished it off by saying, 'people have not asked me about it for months'. Does that make it not an important issue? I think when it comes to the integrity of the Prime Minister of this country I would fundamentally disagree.

Question agreed to.