Mr CREAN (Leader of the Opposition) (2:31 PM) —My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. I ask if he is aware that in an interview yesterday US Secretary of Defense Mr Rumsfeld again acknowledged that Australia was a member of the coalition of the willing.

Mr Lloyd —So what!

Mr CREAN —So what?

The SPEAKER —The Leader of the Opposition has the call.

Mr CREAN —Acting Prime Minister, given this further confirmation by Mr Rumsfeld that Australia is a member of the coalition of the willing, why haven't you and the Prime Minister been honest with the Australian people and admitted that Australia has been a signed-up member of this coalition of the willing since 23 July last year?

Mrs Crosio —Should we adjourn the House and just wait for your presence?

The SPEAKER —I apologise to the House. I always note—

Honourable members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —If there are some who would like to be instantly dealt with they will continue to behave as they are behaving. I am extending an apology to the House for the delay. I, in fact, had noted wrongly that the question was addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and it was for that reason that I had not proceeded with the question. The question apparently was addressed to the Acting Prime Minister, and I recognise him.

Mr ANDERSON (Acting Prime Minister) —Plainly, the imputation behind the Leader of the Opposition's question is this: that we have signed up to something called the coalition of the willing and that our membership of the coalition of the willing commits us, whatever the UN might decide, to military action in the Middle East. That is right?

Mr Crean —That is right.

Mr ANDERSON —Terrific. So the question then becomes: what is the coalition of the willing?

Mr Swan —It's what George Bush says it is.

Mr ANDERSON —The coalition of the willing, we have just heard, is what George Bush says it is. The next point I want to establish is that the high authority on the coalition of the willing would be the President of the United States—would it not?—because he is the man who you got so excited about who confirmed we were part of it. As a matter of fact, what we did not read into the quotes in this place the other day was George Bush's definition of the coalition of the willing. He actually gave it in that interview. I will read it out. We will go through it. Here is the famous part that you all got so excited about. The journalist said:

President Bush replied:

Come on! Get excited. Act like you always do. Then he said—and we have read this bit in ad nauseam as the evidence that President Bush knows that we have not yet made any military decision and has acknowledged it:

He then went on to describe what he understood to be, and how he defines, the coalition of the willing, when he said:

Mr Speaker, President George Bush's understanding of the coalition of the willing is very plainly set out in his response to that question:

Mr Crean —I seek leave to table the transcript of interview in which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that we are a member of the coalition.

Leave granted.

Mr Crean —I seek further leave: I mean the definition of the coalition of the willing which Mr Rumsfeld put, not that concocted one that the Acting Prime Minister has just put.

Leave granted.