Mr CREAN (3:00 PM) —My question is to the Prime Minister. In your answer on 19 September you stated:

Prime Minister, if the issue you were referring to in your answer today was simply that related to Trafigura and, as you have also admitted today, no correspondence was received by your office until about 20 August last year on that issue, why did you disclose the existence of documents going back to January but not disclose your meeting with Mr Honan on 1 August?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —I remind the Leader of the Opposition of the central reality of this issue, and that is that the context of the questions asked of me was the shipment from Brazil.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr HOWARD —Those opposite interject, but it was they who framed the questions. I did not frame the questions; the tactics committee of the opposition framed the questions. They framed the questions about an ethanol shipment, and the reason they framed them about a shipment from Brazil was that I had made a statement five days earlier and they thought, `Aha, this is a conspiracy between the government and Mr Honan and Manildra. He's made this statement, and we will ask a whole lot of questions.' Well, I am quite happy: if the opposition want to ask me questions about an issue, I will answer those questions, and I have made it plain that the context in which I answered these questions was the context in which they were put to me, and that was in relation to this particular shipment. I disclosed particularly the existence of a letter from Mr Honan dealing with the shipment, because, quite apart from anything that may be said by the Leader of the Opposition, I had absolutely no difficulty in disclosing to the House that I had received a letter from Mr Honan on 28 August about the Brazilian shipment. So, if he had specifically raised the Brazilian shipment with me during a personal conversation, why would I not with ease have mentioned that? In other words, if I had no reason to suppress public knowledge about the letter about the Brazilian shipment, why would I have had a reason to suppress the existence of a conversation about the Brazilian shipment? It is obvious that the discussion I had on 1 August—which has the opposition salivating—was not about the subject matter of their questioning, and it is equally obvious that I have not misled the House.