Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In an article written by Kelly Burke, the Consumer Affairs Reporter of the Sydney Morning Herald, on 31 May 2008 titled ‘Questions over $200,000 claim paid to Coonan’, there is a clear suggestion that, somehow, Senator Coonan had approached me in 2001 as Minister for Financial Services and Regulation to change the law to accommodate her personal financial situation. This is completely false. In addition, the article says that the matters ‘had been handled by the then minister for financial services, Joe Hockey’. It goes on to say that I have not ‘explained why his government removed APRA scrutiny from home building insurance in 2002’. Home building insurance was never the responsibility of APRA. APRA was responsible for the prudential supervision of financial institutions, including insurance companies, and was never responsible for product prudential supervision. That is the responsibility of ASIC. The article is fundamentally flawed and I expect an apology from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been misrepresented by way of a most mischievous omission and, in order to clear up the misrepresentation, let me give the full quote which the Deputy Prime Minister referred to:

I want to put it to the House ... that you cannot announce good news before an election without also announcing the bad news.

Then there was the quote from the Deputy Prime Minister, and then I went on to say:

A means test is a means test, and some people will not get the benefit that they were led to expect because of this secret means test which the government has sprung on the Australian public subsequent to the election.

The Deputy Prime Minister should have given the full quote and she should know better than deliver the kind of low blow she attempted today.