Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Speaker. This matter is dealt with on the transcript of the internal review of Slater & Gordon from September 1995. So, if the Deputy Leader of the Opposition wants the answer to this question, read that transcript, where the matter is dealt with extensively, clearly and truthfully. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is in here engaged in smear in matters that have been clarified on the public record and in the public domain for some time now, and no amount of shaking of heads or pretence from people sitting on the front bench makes it anything other than that.

In August, through a press conference with the press gallery, one of the longest press conferences ever held in the nation's history by a Prime Minister, I answered questions going to this matter, which was then on the public record because the transcript from the Slater & Gordon interview was on the public record. Here is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition without one shred of proof, without one reason to doubt what is in the public record on this matter—not one shred of proof, not one thing available to her which enables her to raise a realistic doubt about what I said in that 1995 transcript. This is truly pathetic.

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