Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks very much, Mr Speaker. It is rare—it happens a few times each year—that we have a situation where there is a question as to whether or not a minister has been in breach of the code. Parliament must be able to examine that and there is no way of examining that without asking questions of the minister himself, otherwise we would be in the absurd situation of being allowed to ask only the Prime Minister information that could only be known by the minister himself. So we are in a situation where the only way the minister can be accountable to the parliament as to whether or not he has acted in accordance with the ministerial standards is for the question to be allowed.

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