Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

On this visit: as I said yesterday, it was to deal with the matters that the honourable member raised. First of all, in the case of Sudan, it was about the crisis in western Darfur. The itinerary I had for that visit has the following: arriving Khartoum 5.35 in the morning; head off to the United Nations mission; then off to the United States embassy; call on the Charge d’Affaires,Cameron Hume; depart the United States embassy for the National Assembly; call on key National Assembly figures, including the Speaker; then head off to the World Food Program compound; then head off to an informal dinner with representatives of the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Federal Police. There are about 20 of them on deployment there, in an important continuing peacekeeping operation. That was the first day. The following day, I have here: meeting with World Vision project officer. Then I had dinner with the then visiting Irish Ambassador, Richard O’Brien, who had recently been appointed here in Canberra. Then there was a visit—and I do not have the page for that—to western Darfur itself. The host organisation was World Vision. In fact I mentioned it briefly in my discussion with Tim Costello today. This is completely normal and, as I said before, if the then government seriously have reservations about the sponsorship from this company, why does the now opposition contain within its ranks the National Party, who received $100,000 worth of funding?

See this speech in context