John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Through you, Mr Speaker, let me inform the honourable member that I am perfectly happy to concede, to admit and to plead guilty and say that, having decided on the change and having announced it on the Friday, we had made arrangements to put some advertisements in the papers over the weekend. But bear this in mind: the change was to have effect from Sunday night. Didn’t we have an obligation to inform the public of the change? Those who sit opposite are being completely opportunistic about this issue. If we had made the announcement, which had effect from midnight on the following Sunday, having made it on Friday, without taking out any advertisements to inform the public of what was involved, those opposite would have come in here demanding to know why we had created confusion.

See this speech in context