Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

On Friday, the Leader of the Opposition, at a press conference, stated the following:

The Prime Minister and Treasurer have used their offices and taxpayers’ resources to seek advantage for one of their mates, and then lied about it to the Parliament.

The Leader of the Opposition then called on the Prime Minister and Treasurer to resign as a result of these claims that they had been engaged in corrupt behaviour and had lied to the Australian people. It is hard to think of a more serious accusation that can be made against a Prime Minister or Treasurer than accusations such as these. Accusations of corrupt behaviour in particular are not very common in national politics.

We have now heard reports over the past hour that the AFP has run to ground the fake email on which all of these accusations were founded by the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition and his office now have some very interesting questions to answer. They have been pushing this fake email around for weeks and have been promoting its content for weeks, and now they have some very, very tough questions to answer. It is apparent in the opposition’s behaviour in the parliament today that they understand the predicament they are now in. They have not moved a censure motion. Two or three days ago they were asserting corrupt conduct on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and yet they are not moving a censure motion here today. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition spent most of her speech talking about events of weeks ago that are irrelevant to the current context, and very, very significantly did not even mention the Prime Minister during her opening remarks in her statement about what was wrong with the government.

The opposition now have some very, very tricky questions to answer, particularly in their role in the production, dissemination, distribution and promotion of this phoney email. I call on the opposition to open up all of their computer resources, all of their backups and allow the Federal Police to examine these matters in the same way that the government has. Just of word of friendly advice—to use a Turnbull-like term—do not go scurrying back to your offices and try to delete emails, guys; I do not think that would be a great idea. I suggest that the opposition think very carefully about your behaviour from here on in because you have made the most extreme assertion that is possible to make against a government and against a Prime Minister—corrupt behaviour—on the basis of virtually zero evidence, and now that evidence has blown up in your face.

Over the past few days we have seen an extraordinary saga unfold about this alleged email. It has been a bit like the Loch Ness monster. Everybody has heard of it, everybody knows a bloke in a pub who had a photograph of it, everybody knows what it looks like but there is no evidence of it. And there is no email that anybody can bring to bear.

We even note that the journalist, Steve Lewis from News Ltd, who published a story detailing the content of the email, referred to it as ‘an alleged email’ that had been read out to him. I wonder who might have read out that email to the journalist, because for the last few weeks, the Leader of the Opposition and his acolytes have been telling anybody who wants to listen that they have documentary evidence that shows that Kevin Rudd has lied to the parliament and that Kevin Rudd is corrupt. I note several instances where journalists reported this on Friday, 20 June. Paul Kelly reported Liberal sources saying that they had:

… sighted the evidence.

Sid Maher reported:

… the Coalition last night was maintaining that it had an email …

Phil Coorey reported:

The Coalition claims to be aware of its existence and some say they have read it.

It sounds a lot like the Loch Ness monster to me. It is significant that by the end of the day, Mark Riley, on Channel 7 news was reporting, ‘Those people in the Liberal Party who were telling me yesterday that either they knew of its existence or its contents are now certainly running away at 100 miles an hour.’ It is equally notable that yesterday, at a press conference, the Leader of the Opposition was stating that he had:

… never claimed to have a copy of the email—

and that he had—

… not claimed at any time to be in possession of this email.

Yet, mysteriously, one of his shadow ministers in the Senate was able to read out the content of this alleged email on Friday at the Senate hearing before it had been published in any media outlet. So, although the Leader of the Opposition says that he and by definition the Liberal Party had nothing to do with the dissemination of this email, one of his frontbenchers was able to read it out word for word at the Senate inquiry before it had been published in the media.

There are some peculiar things about this email, and I want to draw the House’s attention to one particular aspect that should have said to anybody scrutinising it and asking is this genuine that there was a question about the email. It refers to ‘a Queensland car dealer, John Grant’, but what it does not contain is any contact information that would enable Mr Grech to follow up the request in the email. The use of the term ‘a Queensland car dealer’ to me implies that this is the first time the person sending the email has raised this matter with Mr Grech in this purported email yet, even though there is a request to follow up, there are no details included as to how this might be done. Anybody reading this email who is being diligent, who is being serious and who understands the explosive nature of the accusation they are proposing to make off the back of this email would have heard an alarm bell ring and said, ‘Hang on a second, this does not ring true.’ Yet the Leader of the Opposition was happy to hawk this around, happy to tell people and happy to front Andrew Charlton, the Prime Minister’s adviser, at the Press Gallery ball and claim that he had documentary evidence.

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