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

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.

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