Lindsay Tanner Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation
3:17 pm
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Harry Jenkins Speaker
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Lindsay Tanner Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation
Most maliciously.
Lindsay Tanner Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation
This morning on Channel 10 the member for North Sydney made the following claim with respect to me: ‘On television he said that he was Acting Treasurer when these decisions were made but he didn’t understand them and he had no role to play in those decisions.’ This claim was effectively reasserted by the Leader of the Opposition in a question to the Prime Minister in the course of question time. I would just like to read you the two relevant extracts from the transcript of my interview.
Joe Hockey North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House
Table the whole of the transcript.
Lindsay Tanner Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation
Would you like me to read the whole of the transcript for you? You clearly have not read it.
Lindsay Tanner Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation
Firstly, I will quote as follows:
I am not aware of the specific advice that is supposed to have been given to us by the Reserve Bank governor, according to newspaper reports this morning. I am simply not aware of the basis of that.
That clearly refers to the report in the Australian alleging that the Reserve Bank governor had advised the government that its actions would destabilise and distort money markets. To the best of my knowledge, no such advice has been given. I will turn to the second part of the relevant section of the transcript. The question is:
Is—
for the advice of the opposition, that is in the present tense—
the government considering a $5 million cap on these deposits as reported today?
My answer was:
Not to my knowledge, and you should bear in mind that these are essentially matters for the Treasurer. I was—
past tense, for those in the opposition—
Acting Treasurer for the period when they were actually introduced, but typically when the Treasurer is in the saddle—
and I have not been Acting Treasurer for more than a week—
I don’t get directly involved in these matters on a day-to-day basis because they are his portfolio, not mine.
This answer referred to a question about what is happening now, not what was happening when I was Acting Treasurer a week ago. There is a gross misrepresentation in the statement of both the member for North Sydney and the Leader of the Opposition.
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Honourable Members:
Joe Hockey North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House
Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table the full transcript of the Minister for Finance and Deregulation from this morning.
Leave not granted.
Harry Jenkins Speaker
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Alby Schultz Hume, Liberal Party
On page 2 of today’s Australian newspaper, an article by New South Wales political reporter Imre Salusinszky contains comments sourced from a letter written by New South Wales MLC the Hon. Duncan Gay which allege that I had approached him in his previous capacity as National Party chairman to join the National Party. A simple check of my public comments about the National Party over two decades of political life quite clearly shows the allegation for what it is: arrant nonsense, simply untrue and a desperate, deliberate attempt by Mr Gay to mislead the community.
Harry Jenkins Speaker
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Paul Neville Hinkler, National Party
Late last evening, in the debate on the Education Legislation Amendment Bill and the Schools Assistance Bill, the member for Moreton said:
It was interesting to hear the member for Hinkler outline how a school that he was connected with had deliberately targeted people with low socioeconomic status to artificially inflate the status for that school.
I did not say that I knew of a school that did that, I did not talk about anyone being deliberately targeted and I did not suggest that anyone artificially inflated their figures. In fact, what I said was this—I was talking about the SES:
That is a fair system. It is also an encouragement to some of the more affluent schools to take on a cross-section of less affluent kids by way of scholarships or reduced fees or whatever it might be. That enriches the profile of their school and it gives other kids the opportunity to go to good quality schools.
It was none of the things it was claimed to be.