Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

They ask, ‘Where’s the proof?’ Read the Hansard of the Senate inquiry of last Friday. Read what the Ford finance representatives told the press last Friday. Finally, amidst all of the problems of the car industry that were driving our poor Treasurer to distraction—he was losing sleep at night he was so concerned about the state of small business—how many other car dealers have had their problems made the subject of faxes and emails sent directly to him at home after seven o’clock on a Friday evening? It is utterly implausible that anyone has been treated in the same way that Mr John Grant has been treated.

I have read Mr John Grant’s statements in the press. I am sure Mr John Grant is a fine man and nothing that is said in this House is directed against him. I have seen that Mr Grant has said, ‘Friendship is friendship and loyalty is loyalty,’ and I just say this: lying is lying and misleading the House is the worst political offence that a member of parliament can commit, and it has been committed by the Treasurer of this country—unless he can come into this House and explain precisely why what he did for Mr Grant was exactly the same as what he did for everyone else.

What we have seen from this government is an extraordinary campaign of bluff and intimidation against anyone who dares to call the integrity of its senior members into question. What kind of country has Australia become if a media report that the government does not like and which seriously embarrasses the Prime Minister and the Treasurer becomes the instant subject of an Australian Federal Police investigation? This is more akin to the actions of a police state than it is to the traditions of a great democracy. On the face of it, even in the Prime Minister’s own performance today we saw a radical lack of integrity. What did the Prime Minister come in and say? He said that Senator Abetz on Friday had in his possession a forged and fraudulent email. He must have had access to the Senate Hansard where Senator Abetz said that he had been told by a journalist about an email. This is a very significant fact and yet it is a fact which was totally ignored by a Prime Minister who is desperate to defame, intimidate and bluff anyone who is calling his integrity into question.

And then he comes into this parliament and says that the Leader of the Opposition has concocted this: on the basis of the first report of the AFP’s investigation the so-called fake email originated in Treasury. Now the fact of the matter is this: I think that the Leader of the Opposition is a very powerful man but he cannot cook up a conspiracy with the Treasury—he cannot alter the Treasury’s computer system. What we are seeing today is a giant smokescreen from a terrified government. (Time expired)

See this speech in context