Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

It is all on the public record now, after the event. It shows the two-faced nature of this approach. Having earned his stripes in these sorts of deals, he was then moved into the Senate. I remember that, when I was sitting on the other side and Senator Evans was sitting on the government side, he was seen as one of the leading lights—one of the up-and-coming Labor lights. Where was he when we had discussions in this place about the then Treasurer, Mr Keating, failing to lodge his tax returns? There he was: defending Mr Keating. Where was Senator Evans when Senator Richardson failed to disclose a registrable instrument, being a director of a commercial radio station? There he was: defending Senator Richardson. They are the sorts of standards that Senator Evans brings into this debate. Mr Deputy President, if you want to come into these sorts of debates, you have to come with clean hands, and Senator Evans’s are as filthy as they get.

Mr Deputy President, I say this to you: to err is human. We all make mistakes. The test is not whether we make mistakes; the test is how we deal with those mistakes when we are confronted by them. Senator Santoro resigned. Senator Campbell resigned. From the Labor Party, Mr Kelvin Thomson resigned. The only person that has not resigned is Mr Kevin Rudd, who deliberately sought to sup with Brian Burke for his own personal political advantage. Make no mistake: the reason the Australian Labor Party has now continued with this assault is a desperate attempt to raise a smokescreen so the media will not continue to ask what Mr Rudd was doing at breakfast, lunch and dinner with Mr Brian Burke. The excuses Mr Rudd has come up with to date simply do not wash. They are not honest. I withdraw that. They are not believable. The reason they are not believable is that the email trail has now come out, and it has exposed the excuses of Mr Rudd as being absolutely implausible.

If Mr Howard, the Prime Minister, is to be responsible for an improper share disclosure by Senator Santoro, possibly those opposite could tell us the responsibility of Morris Iemma for his ministers’ activities, which I will not go into in detail. What about Premier Carpenter, in Western Australia? What about Premier Lennon, in Tasmania, whose minister is currently facing criminal charges? Let there be no doubt that the Labor Party do not come into this debate with clean hands, nor would they apply the standards they profess on their own state Labor premiers, which shows once again how shallow, how hollow, they are. All they do is continue the lie of that paragon of virtue, Senator Richardson. (Time expired)