Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Prime Minister Bill English said in the New Zealand parliament yesterday that these were serious issues, where the Labor Party had set up the New Zealand Labour Party to undertake a series of actions that the Labour Party in New Zealand have now admitted were wrong, inappropriate, unacceptable, and should not have happened, and it was all at the behest of the Australian Labor Party, who stop at nothing, will trash any principle, trash any promise, trash any element of decency in order to gain a political advantage.

This is a significant and serious issue, as the New Zealand Prime Minister has pointed out. And, for Labor to find it amusing that Senator Wong, who holds herself out to be the shadow minister for foreign affairs, would direct her chief of staff to contact a sitting member of another parliament to use another parliament as a platform to launch an attack on the Australian Deputy Prime Minister is an utter disgrace! The New Zealand foreign minister was asked whether he thought I was correct in raising this issue, and the New Zealand foreign minister said, 'It's a perfectly reasonable reaction, given the fact that a New Zealand member of parliament from the New Zealand Labour Party, under influence from the Australian Labor Party, is asking questions clearly designed to remove a government member in Australia. That is the bigger problem here.'

It behoves the Labor Party not at all well for them to trivialise what is a serious issue. The New Zealand Prime Minister says it's a serious issue and the New Zealand foreign minister says it's a serious issue. The New Zealand Labour Party are furious that they were conned into unacceptable, inappropriate behaviour that was wrong and should never have happened. Shame, Labor!

Honourable members interjecting—

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