Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

No amount of screaming from the opposition changes the transcript. The Leader of the Opposition was on the Today show and said I misled the WA Corporate Affairs Commission and that is obviously a very serious matter that would certainly appear to be a breach of the law. He then went on at the end of the transcript to accuse me by saying: this is a Prime Minister who made false representations, who gave false information to the Corporate Affairs Commission, which allowed a vehicle to be established which was then used for fraud. The Leader of the Opposition this morning was out accusing me of a crime; let us be very clear.

And then, at the behest of the Leader of the Opposition, the Manager of Opposition Business was calling for my resignation on the basis that I had committed a crime. Now there is a problem with all of this for the Leader of the Opposition. When leaders of the opposition overreach and go out and falsely accuse the Prime Minister of committing a crime, we have seen this movie before. If he wants to see how the movie ends, turn around and look at the member for Wentworth because we saw in the Godwin Grech affair what happens to a leader of the opposition who accuses the Prime Minister of a crime and cannot back it up. We see what happens to them in public esteem and we see ultimately what happens to them in the eyes of their own political party.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition knew how bad it was to make an error and accuse me of a crime when the opposition had no material to back it up. In the morning she did that, in the afternoon she was denying she had done it and then she back flipped and said no she did not mean that at all. So the Deputy Leader of the Opposition engaged in a humiliating backdown. But there was no such backdown for the Leader of the Opposition today. He just went out and said that I had committed a crime. We have given the Leader of the Opposition 15 minutes to make this allegation good. Where the Leader of the Opposition got to out of his 15 minutes was 'conduct unbecoming'. That is where he has backed off to. Let me just explain to people exactly what has happened this morning. What has happened this morning is that—

Opposition members interjecting—

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