Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

I will go through what was factually incorrect in that speech. People are quite right to want to defend their communities and quite right to want to argue for the best possible deal, but, when information is added that is factually untrue, for the particular circumstances that many of these communities are in, I do think it is unhelpful.

First of all, there was a claim that the report had been completed and the government sat on it in advance of the election. That is just factually untrue. I was handed a copy of the report for the first time two days before it was released. Briefings began in the final week before it was released. The authority, up until when briefings began, were holding regular meetings to determine what would be in the document. Given that that was when it was completed, which was well after the election, well after the 17 days following the election while we worked out who was going to be in government, it is simply untrue to claim that there was some disingenuous game going on to hide this report from people. It was not completed beforehand. The first time it was handed to a government minister, it was handed to me, and that was a couple of days before the release of the report.

Second, there was a claim that the Prime Minister had committed, before the election, to implement this report, to implement the guide. That is completely factually untrue.

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