Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Now that the Prime Minister has had an opportunity to check the sequence of events, will the Prime Minister inform the House who on his personal staff sits on the border protection subcommittee of cabinet, the date and time the committee resolved to make the written offer to the asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking and the date and time it was actually communicated to those asylum seekers?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So we get to question 4 and finally we go to the substance of the challenge against me yesterday: that I had misled the parliament in terms of my knowledge of the Jakarta embassy immigration section’s document concerning these matters. Instead now we engage in the supposed forensics of who, what and when in terms of the operations of the border protection committee. As I said to the House yesterday, the border protection committee of our cabinet has responsibility for these and other matters concerning people smuggling and border protection.

Secondly, it is chaired by the immigration minister and has representation from other relevant ministers, other relevant bureaucrats and other relevant staff including my own. Thirdly, a number of my own staff would be on it from time to time. That is the normal way in which you handle things. But once again we find ourselves with the Leader of the Opposition trying to crab-walk his way out of responsibility. What was the basis yesterday of his charge that I had misled the parliament? Was it another forged email? Was it a concocted fax? Was it some other manufactured document or simply a counterfeit smoke signal?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order as to relevance. The Prime Minister has failed to answer a very specific question.

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

It is finished. The member for Franklin.