Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the same document—the ABC annual report. It is interesting to note with respect to this report that, like most organisations, the ABC have values. In this particular case, I go to the integrity of the ABC. The report notes trustworthiness, honesty and fairness. Conversely, I take you to an interview in which Kerry O’Brien, the interviewer on The 7.30 Report, was interviewing the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. Unfortunately I was not able to watch the program—I was otherwise involved in other activities; I may have even been down here. I cannot recall back on 17 May whether that was the case. But Kerry O’Brien, in scrutinising the opposition’s position on tax, questions Tony Abbott by saying:

But part of that judgment is judging whether they can trust you at your word, at what you say at any given time. In February this year you said in a radio interview: “We will fund our promises without new taxes and without increased taxes.”

We know for the record that that is not the case now. Kerry O’Brien then put to Tony Abbott:

A month later you announced that you’d fund six months paid maternity leave by putting a new tax on big companies.

A big new tax on companies. That was a concern that was certainly expressed by many businesses during my time on the paid parental leave inquiry. Further on Kerry O’Brien said:

So you are prepared, having promised one month no new tax whatever, no increased tax to pay for policies, one month later you find a rationale that says we’re gonna have to find a new tax for this.

Tony Abbott blustered and stumbled and did not really know what to say in response in that particular interview and really did not come up with an answer to the question. So Kerry O’Brien pressed him a bit further and said:

But what you haven’t explained is how you can make one promise in one month and then completely change it the next.

Was it really a sudden explosion of vision or a thought bubble? That was something that needed to be scrutinised, and that is certainly what Kerry O’Brien was doing on The 7.30 Report. He was testing to see whether the opposition leader was truthful. Tony Abbott responded, finally, indicating:

... sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm ... the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

So you start to wonder what sorts of remarks can be relied upon—if it is something that Tony Abbott is reading from or something that he says in an interview or in any location—and whether his remarks are truly gospel truth.

I also found it astonishing in the transcript of his defence that he indicated that what he said at one stage was ‘absolutely consistent’ and then on the other hand there was ‘a bit of inconsistency’ and he then mentioned ‘seriously inconsistent’. Kerry O’Brien pulled him up and said:

Is that why your colleagues over the years have come to call you “The Weathervane”?

I think that is a bit of an unfair comment, but that is certainly the analogy that Kerry O’Brien and, it appears, some of his colleagues across the other side of chamber refer to him as—because he sways from one end of the argument to the other. He certainly indicated that that is the case by admitting on The 7.30 Report that he is untruthful.

There is one other point that I wish to make. We covered off on the Paid Parental Leave scheme this afternoon—which was great to see; however, if you go back in time to 2002, Mr Abbott told a Liberal Party function in Victoria:

Compulsory paid maternity leave? Over this Government’s dead body, frankly.

So there is the inconsistency. They are the reasons that those colleagues opposite here and in the other place call him ‘The Weathervane’. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.