Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you claim to be misrepresented?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Most grievously, Mr Speaker.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You may proceed.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the course of question time today there were many and varied misrepresentations of me made by the government, and by the Prime Minister in particular. All of that's part of the hustle and bustle of this chamber. But there's nothing more egregious that the Prime Minister said during question time than to cast an aspersion on comments I made in relation to a great Australian, Yunupingu. Last Tuesday in Adelaide I said the following, and these are the remarks that the Prime Minister made reference to:

I think there's also an important point to make that in many Indigenous communities, East Arnhem Land for example, they've got a 90 per cent attendance rate at school, they've got a logging company, they've got a building company, they've got housing, they've got a functioning society, and in that instance it's because of the leadership demonstrated by Yunupingu and others around him over the course of a long period, and that's what we want to see replicated elsewhere.

That was the extent of my comment in relation to Mr Yunupingu. For the Prime Minister to misrepresent that today in a way that suggested that I had dishonoured Mr Yunupingu or said something in a derogatory way in relation to Mr Yunupingu reflects more on the Prime Minister, frankly, than it does on me.