Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

In 2003 we had the Athens declaration, where the Prime Minister yet again reneged on a promise to Mr Costello. He said that he would hand over when he was 64. We now discover what a deception that was. We are now being told there were further promises made and that Mr Costello would be the first to be consulted about the Prime Minister’s plans. We discovered in just the last fortnight that he was the last to be consulted about the Prime Minister’s plans. Of course, we all understand who was first to be consulted. It was Mrs Howard. We all understand who made the decision. It was not the Liberal Party; it was Mrs Howard. We all now understand that the deputy leader of the Liberal Party was deceived yet again. We are now told that, sometime in the future, at some indeterminate date, if the Liberal Party agrees and if the Prime Minister has not already organised another candidate, then maybe Mr Costello will get an opportunity to serve.

This follows a pattern of deceit by this government. We saw it with foreign debt. The Prime Minister said in 1995, ‘I promise you we will follow policies which will bring down foreign debt.’ What has been produced? The exact opposite. We were told in January 2006 that no worker would be worse off—and how ridiculous that proposition now looks! The Prime Minister said in 2004, ‘Who do you trust to keep interest rates low?’ We were told a lie on Iraq. We went to war on a lie. This is a government that has been founded on one lie after another. (Time expired)