Prime Minister

The majority voted against a motion by the Leader of the Opposition, Grayndler MP Anthony Albanese (Labor), which means it failed. The motion would have suspended the usual procedural rules (known as standing orders) so that a vote could take place.

Motion text

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Grayndler from moving the following motion immediately—That the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) in attempting to defend a Minister who has deliberately misled the Parliament, the Prime Minister misled the Parliament;

(b) yesterday in Question Time, the Prime Minister told the House that in March 2013, a then detective in Victoria Police's fraud squad, Ross Mitchell, made a statement about former Prime Minister Julia Gillard;

(c) that statement was made word for word by radio host Ben Fordham—a fact which was clear from The Australian newspaper article dated 27 April 2013 by Hedley Thomas which reports that statement;

(d) late yesterday, the Prime Minister admitted that he had misled the Parliament but despite House of Representatives Practice being clear that a misleading of Parliament can be corrected by either making a statement to the House or writing to the Clerk of the House, the Prime Minister instead directed that letter to the Speaker be tabled by another Minister; and

(e) the Prime Minister has refused repeated calls from the Leader of the Opposition to attend the House at 9.30 am today to correct the record in the form demanded by the House; and

(2) therefore, calls on the Prime Minister to do what is required by both House of Representatives Practice and his own Ministerial Standards and immediately attend the Chamber to correct his misleading statement.