Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister)(3.23 p.m.) —Could I commence my response to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Beazley) by making a couple of observations about the context in which this censure motion is moved by the Leader of the Opposition. He raises two issues: the position of Senator Short and the awarding of the gun control campaign contract to the DDB Needham company.

On the second of those issues, whether or not DDB Needham should have been awarded the gun control contract, I can do no better in starting my response than to quote some words that were uttered by the spokesman in 1989 who had this to say:

It is not the case now, nor has it ever been, that an agency which has the account of a political party which is in government should be banned from receiving government advertising.

Those words were uttered by former Senator Graham Richardson, who of course had a very long association with one John Singleton.

I just happened to have thrust into my hands—and I am grateful to the person who handed it to me—a list of some government contracts. It is a very interesting list. There are two subheadings: the first is John Singleton and the second is Rod Cameron and ANOP. And isn't it interesting? The first subheading reads as follows under John Singleton: `Job description: privatisation of Qantas advertising campaign. Amount $15 million.' Then we have `Artwork for Be Tru Blue stickers'. And, thirdly, the `Buy Australian campaign'. Again in November 1989 another Buy Australian campaign worth $2.4 million. In October 1988 we had the `Austrade national export drive campaign' and the `Part share of the Australian Bicentennial Authority advertising budget'.

Mr Downer —He did rather well!

Mr HOWARD —He did do rather well. It was purely coincidental and it was all merit, just as I hope the more generous spirited people on the Labor Party's side might acknowledge. Just as Needham's displayed a little bit of professional capacity in the last election campaign, I am prepared to concede that Mr Singleton displayed some great professional capacity particularly in the 1987 campaign. We are all invited to believe that that was just purely accidental. If we are being encouraged to believe that those contracts were awarded on merit, then what is the basis of the allegation being made by the Leader of the Opposition? Would you like me to tell you about that committee?

Mr Bevis —There was a member of your staff on the committee.

Mr HOWARD —Yes, there was a member of my staff on that committee, Mr Grahame Morris, one of the most experienced political campaigners on our side of politics. I have a lot of regard for Mr Grahame Morris and I continue to have regard for Mr Grahame Morris. I have a lot of regard for Mr Petro Georgiou, who is the member for Kooyong. And I tell you what, the Labor Party in Victoria has a lot of regard for him too!

Mr Beazley interjecting—

Mr HOWARD —Pipe down. You've had your go and you were heard in silence. If you want an extension of time, you should have asked for it. It is very interesting that there was one bloke on the committee that they did not name and that was Paul Whelan. Do you know what Paul Whelan's parting comment to the committee was? He left before the final vote was taken. As he walked out of the room he said, `I'll leave it to you blokes.' This is the representative of the New South Wales Labor Party on that committee! The fact of the matter is, so I am told by the Minister for Administrative Services (Mr Jull), $1 million was allocated for this campaign. There were five tenderers.

Mr Beazley —Oh, $1 million.

Mr HOWARD —That is one-fifteenth of what John Singleton got out of the Qantas contract. If you can establish any impropriety, you have not done so yet. All you have done is engage in the old Labor Party tactic of naming a couple of names.

Why wouldn't you have your experienced political campaigners on the selection committee? Why wouldn't you allow the political representatives on the committee to make the final choice? Why wouldn't you rely upon the assessment of somebody who had won two Victorian election campaigns against the Labor Party—somebody who'd helped us win a great victory in South Australia and a great federal victory? Why wouldn't you take the advice of those people equally? When you made decisions on these things, didn't you take the advice of your hard-headed professional? Of course you did. Any sensible political party would take those decisions.

I do not think there is any doubt about the campaign that has been mounted by the Leader of the Opposition in relation to this. As he sat down he said, `Oh, there's more to come.' Every member of the government is literally quaking in his or her boots about the `more to come' in this particular issue!

Let me then turn to the first part of the claim that was made against me and the government—that is, the question of ministerial standards, failure to exercise leadership, `failure to impose your own standards' and all of those various allegations that were made against me by the Leader of the Opposition.

He chose to use the benchmark of the first six or seven months of this government having been in office. If he will cast his mind back to within the first six or seven months of his government having been in office, you had Mick Young thrown out of the ministry because he tipped off his mate Eric Walsh, in a Canberra car park, about throwing out a spy; you had Lionel Bowen calling for Japanese troops in Cambodia; you had Biggles over there threatening to send F111s over Tasmania—

Mr McGauran —He did! He did!

Mr HOWARD —And he did. And so the list goes on. Instead of improving with the passage of time, they got progressively worse. He talks about standards. Nobody who has been in this parliament for the last 22 years will ever forget the night that the former Treasurer, the former Prime Minister—talk about double standards being applied to battlers—walked into this parliament and admitted that he had failed to file two tax returns. What did his Prime Minister do at the time? Of course he overlooked it. But what did Treasury do at the time? They prosecuted about 10,000 Australians for having been guilty of the same offence. Was there a word of attrition? Did the rock solid for pristine parliamentary standards, the then member for Swan, the then Minister for Defence, get up and say, `I'm sorry, Prime Minister, but this standard is just not good enough for me'?

The truth of the matter is that, throughout the whole time they were in office, the failure of the Labor government at that time to apply proper ministerial standards, their continued refusal, even after they had been ministers for long periods, to apply proper parliamentary and ministerial standards became legend in Australian political circles. The arch exponent of that was the former member for Blaxland, the former Prime Minister, Mr Paul Keating.

Let me make a couple of very direct points about Senator Short. Let me say at the outset of making those observations that at no stage has Senator Short sought to hide from the Australian public, or hide from anybody, the ownership of those ANZ Bank shares. At no stage, in my view, has Senator Short behaved dishonestly. At no stage, in my view, has Senator Short taken a decision which has been influenced or conditioned by his ownership of those shares.

That is the critical thing. If you could point to any decision that Senator Short has taken which he would otherwise not have taken if he had not owned those shares, then you would have a case. But you have not made that point; you have not made that case at all. Until you can make that case, you have absolutely no capacity and absolutely no credibility in bringing this motion forward.

If you were to ask me whether Senator Short should have got rid of those shares, the answer is yes. Was he in breach of the guidelines? The answer is clearly that he was. The question, therefore, is: what was the appropriate response of me as Prime Minister on becoming aware of those circumstances? Would it have been a reasonable, appropriate and fair penalty, given the circumstances of the matter and given the fact that Senator Short had at no stage made a decision that was influenced by the ownership of those shares—and that is the critical test of morality in this, that is the hard core test of morality here; you may not like it but you have to face that fact—to have asked for his resignation? If Senator Short had taken such a decision, I believe Senator Short's resignation would have automatically followed. But the fact is that he had not done so. Having been satisfied that his personal honesty in the matter was not in question, I took the decision, given the fact that it was in his early months as a member of the ministry, that it would have been an unreasonably harsh penalty to have required his resignation.

As he indicated to the Senate, he will be immediately disposing of those shares. Let me put it this way: I will be very surprised if Senator Short ends up personally profiting in any way from the sale of those shares.

Mr Crean —What—$9,000?

Mr HOWARD —I underline the words `personally profiting' from them. I think people will understand my meaning when I make that observation. I think Senator Short and others will also understand my meaning when I make that observation. I think the Australian public will understand my meaning when I make that observation. So here we have a situation where, yes, the minister was careless; yes, the minister overlooked the requirement to comply with the guidelines. I acknowledge that; the minister has acknowledged that. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise.

The question therefore arises: what is the appropriate penalty? What is the appropriate response? Would it have been appropriate to have sacked him or would it have been appropriate for me to have taken the action that I have? I have taken the action that I have because I believe that he was not setting out to be dishonest. He did not take a decision that was influenced by the ownership of those ANZ shares. If he had not owned those shares, I do not believe the decisions that he would have taken, the attitudes he would have expressed and the views he would have held would have been any different at all from the views he actually held, the actions he took and the decisions he made.

That is the background of the decision that I have taken in relation to this matter. It does not mean in any way that I do not put the highest possible store on the requirements of ministers to behave in a proper fashion. Of course, the opposition will have its penn'orth of fun on this issue. I will be criticised for not having sacked him. I accept that. But, in the long run, you have to make a balanced, mature judgment on something like this. I think, in all of the circumstances, given the palpable demonstration on behalf of Senator Short that there was no intention on his part to behave dishonestly, given obviously the fact that Senator Short at no stage took a decision that was influenced by the ownership of those shares, to have required his resignation would have been unreasonable. I think the whole experience would have been a very salutary lesson for Senator Short. I do not think it is an experience that he is likely to forget in a long time.