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Thursday, 20 September 2007
Page: 98

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) (3:57 PM) —I know it seems quite a long time ago but this issue started when the member for Jagajaga asked me a question, which we all know was more an accusation than a question. What in effect the member for Jagajaga was doing, presumably with the authority of the Leader of the Opposition, was alleging that either I or, with my knowledge, members of the government had raised issues about the physical health of the Leader of the Opposition. That is how it started. By any measure, by any use of the English language, an accusation of that kind in the absence of evidence supporting it represents about the basest possible smear that can be made in this place. That is why we decided to move a motion inviting the true author of that base accusation to substantiate to the parliament why he believed that I or members of my government were responsible for smearing him in relation to his health.

Can I say this, through you, Mr Speaker, to the Leader of the Opposition: as an individual I bear him no malice. I do not wish him well politically but I wish him no harm on a personal basis, nor do I wish him other than a long and healthy and happy life as an individual. I would suggest that any Australians in the gallery that may be listening to this debate are, frankly, if I can put it bluntly, more interested in the health of their nation than they are in the health of either the Leader of the Opposition or me.

Ms Owens interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Parramatta is warned!

Mr HOWARD —It passes strange that a few moments ago the Leader of the Opposition raised this issue—‘Oh, the Prime Minister and I should be debating our respective future plans for the government of the country.’ Not a bad point! I might say rhetorically in reply: why on earth therefore did the Leader of the Opposition waste a question through the mouth of the member for Jagajaga about a smear instead of asking me a question about the policy of the government?

Ms Gillard interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition!

Mr HOWARD —Let me state it very simply to those who sit opposite. The allegation made by the member for Jagajaga is baseless. The allegation made by the Leader of the Opposition is baseless.

Mr McMullan interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Fraser!

Mr HOWARD —We have not been spreading smears about the Leader of the Opposition’s health.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Jagajaga is warned!

Mr HOWARD —I am a great believer in the doctrine of coincidence in politics. What is coincidental? Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition by any measure had a very bad day.

Ms Gillard interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned!

Mr HOWARD —He had a very bad day: he couldn’t answer the most simple question about taxation. Then we have questions raised in the parliament about that issue and then we go on to the evening news bulletins and out of the blue—

Mr McMullan interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Fraser is warned!

Mr HOWARD —I have to say I was totally surprised to turn on the Channel 9 news. I was expecting Laurie Oakes to have a concoction of the Rudd gaffe on tax and some of the byplay and exchange in relation to the remarks made by the chief of staff of the Special Minister of State. I thought that would be the Oakes package, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, I hope there’s more of Rudd’s mistake’—I’ll be honest about it—‘than there is about the other issue,’ and I think you would understand why I would say that. Then quite out of the blue we have this astonishing thing, this reference to the Leader of the Opposition’s health. Isn’t that interesting?

Mr Costello interjecting—

Mr HOWARD —Yes, with an exclusive. But isn’t that coincidental? As the Treasurer rightly said, why on earth would we spike our own story? If I were a suspicious person—and I am not; I think charitably towards the Leader of the Opposition in relation to these matters—I would say to myself, ‘Well, I don’t think that story has come from our side of politics; I think that story may have come from another side of politics.’ I am not normally a suspicious person but I may well have thought that.

But let me take this opportunity of saying we are not interested in smearing the Leader of the Opposition as an individual; we never have been. What the Labor Party has endeavoured to do all of this year is to construct in the minds of the Australian people the belief that any attack on the Leader of the Opposition is a personal smear of the Leader of the Opposition, that you are not allowed to criticise the Leader of the Opposition, that he is the one political leader in Australian history who we are not entitled to question or we are not entitled to attack.

Ms Roxon interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Gellibrand!

Mr HOWARD —He keeps coming out in the press and he says there is going to be a mother of all fear campaigns. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition that we will be telling the Australian people, when the election campaign starts, of the danger of electing a union dominated government. We will be telling the Australian people of the danger to good government in this country of having a Labor government federally as well as a Labor government in power in each of the states and the territories.

Mr Swan interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Lilley is warned!

Mr HOWARD —We will be telling the Australian people that it is not a good thing to place the management of the Australian economy in the hands of inexperienced people who do not, for example, understand our taxation system at a time when international storm clouds are threatening the stability of the international economy. This, more that at any time over the last five years, is a time for the Australian economy to be in strong, experienced hands, in the hands of people who understand how to withstand the ravages of international economic buffeting.

The Leader of the Opposition would say to the Australian people: ‘Oh, they can’t say that about me. It’s a smear.’ Could I remind the Leader of the Opposition that he has only been in politics since 1998 and a number of us have been in politics for a long time. If he imagines that what has been said about his lack of experience, what has been said about his knowledge deficit in relation to taxation and what has been said about his glass jaw represent a personal attack and a personal smear, can I say to the Leader of the Opposition, through you, Mr Speaker: you haven’t been born.

Mr Tanner interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Melbourne is on very thin ice.

Mr HOWARD —I remember the day my predecessor pointed at Alexander Downer—I have never forgotten it—and accused his father of being part of the appeasement brigade in the late 1930s and called into question the courage of a man who spent four years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese on the Burma-Thailand railway.

Ms Roxon interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Gellibrand is warned!

Mr HOWARD —And yet the Labor Party sat there and they were perfectly happy to have that. I can remember the Leader of the Opposition jumping up when his predecessor but one—Mark Latham—used one of the most vulgar expressions I have ever heard used in this parliament about a female journalist, and we all know what I am referring to. I remember the deafening silence of the Leader of the Opposition. I remember the deafening silence of all the female members of the Australian Labor Party—not one of them got up to condemn that foul insinuation about Janet Albrechtsen.

I also remember the deafening silence of the Leader of the Opposition when Mark Latham referred to Tony Staley’s physical disability, occasioned by a motor car accident that almost claimed his life. Tony’s life hung in the balance for 12 months, and to this day he is walking with the benefit only of crutches.

Mr Garrett interjecting—

The SPEAKER —The member for Kingsford Smith is warned!

Mr HOWARD —The Leader of the Opposition thinks he has been smeared because people dare to criticise his policies. He has not been born in Australian politics to understand that. I regard the attempt by the Labor Party to implicate us in this smear as a base diversion. The Leader of the Opposition has utterly failed to produce any evidence to support his claim. What is more, he was too gutless to ask the question himself. He should have got up at the first instance. He did not have the courage to do that and he stands condemned as a result. (Time expired)

The SPEAKER —The time for the extension of the debate has now expired. The original question was that the motion be agreed to, to which the Leader of the Opposition has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question put.